Class. 
Book. 



ECHOES FROM EGYPT; 



TYPE OF ANTICHRIST. 



BY THE 

REV. WILLIAM JOHN GROVES, M.A. 

SOME TIME VICAR OF CHEWTOX MENDIP, 
IN THE COUNTY OF SOMERSET. 




LONDON : \ 
RIVINGTONS, WATEKLOO PLACE. 
1857. 



, &1 



LONDON : 

gilbert and rivington, printers, 
st. John's square. 




Or 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

PRELIMINARY ObSERYATIONS 1 

PART I. 

CHAPTER 

I. The Origin of Idolatry and Sacrifice .... G 

II. Idolatry in Egypt 3G 

III. Egyptian Triad 61 

IV. Manetho and the Monuments 73 

V. Josephus and Manetho 90 

VI. Date of Joseph's Entry into Egypt 110 

VII. Israel in Egypt 131 

VIII. The Cataclysm 15G 

IX. The Brazen Serpent 184 

PART II. 

I. Babylon and Egypt 205 

II. The Woman clothed with the Sun 234 

III. Michael and the Dragon 258 



IV CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

IV. A Day for a Year 279 

V. The Beast and his Eider 308 

VI. The Eemnant 339 

VII. The Mystic Number . . 371 

VIII. The Type of Antichrist 424 

IX. The Spiritual Exodus, the "Wilderness of Life, 

the Best that remaineth 449 



ERRATUM, 

Page 27, line 5, for latter read, former 



ECHOES FROM EGYPT, 



PEELIMINABY OBSERVATIONS. 

A work, the object of which is to throw light upon 
the mystic number of the Beast spoken of in the 
thirteenth chapter of the Revelation, can scarcely 
be deemed superfluous, when it is borne in mind 
that a recent writer 1 on prophecy has observed 
concerning the various interpretations hitherto 
given of this obscure and remarkable passage, that 
u all seems uncertain conjecture." 

For attempting a new mode of treating the sub- 
ject no apology can be necessary, since the great 
diversity of opinion obtaining in the learned world 
sufficiently attests the fact, that the various methods 
hitherto pursued have failed to produce a solution 
satisfactory to all parties. 

1 Archdeacon Harrison. 

B 



2 



PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 



In the elucidation of symbolic prophecy a two- 
fold treatment of the subject would appear requi- 
site. First the interpretation of the symbol, then 
its application. Commentators appear to have con- 
fined themselves too much to the latter of these 
methods ; disregarding the typical structure of the 
passage, they have sought a response to the mystic 
number exclusively in the History of the Church of 
Christ; neglecting to address themselves to the 
evolution of the symbol, they have been content to 
exercise their talents in ascertaining its probable, 
or possible, accomplishment. 

It is in its too much neglected typical character 
that it is now proposed to consider this sacred 
mystery. Guided by that rule which the Holy 
Ghost enjoins, and comparing things spiritual with 
spiritual, L e. as the Fathers interpret the passage, 
— comparing the things which were inspired by the 
Spirit in the Old Testament with what is now re- 
vealed to us by the same Spirit in the New, it 
will be necessary to look back to the earlier pages 
of God's Word, not forward to the history of the 
Church of Christ ; to take a retrospective view into 
the depths of Holy Scripture, not a prospective 
one into ecclesiastical records. And should the 
endeavour to elicit a response to the symbol in 
events which befel the ancient Church of God be 
successful, we may probably be better prepared to 
ascertain its office as an index of "things which 
must shortly come to pass." 



PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 



3 



In commencing an investigation of this nature, 
a full statement might be expected of the line of 
argument intended to be pursued, and of the con- 
clusion at which the author has arrived, and the 
absence of such statement may give to the earlier 
chapters of this work an appearance of desultori- 
ness which the Author cannot but deplore. Yet 
after long and anxious consideration he has deemed 
it best to abstain from such a course, under the 
conviction that it would materially interfere with 
the proper handling of the subject to be developed; 
and should the reader be content to follow him 
patiently through the first part of this treatise, he 
trusts the second part will prove of such a cha- 
racter as to vindicate the method which, most un- 
willingly, he has felt himself compelled to adopt. 

Of the paucity of learning brought to bear on 
the subject, none can be more sensible than the 
Author. He has felt most deeply that it is not 
always he who discovers the vein of gold that is 
the best qualified to work the mine. 

On Pagan Mythology in particular his knowledge 
is so slight, that he would gladly have profited by 
the advice and suggestions of those who have de- 
voted their time and attention to fathoming sub- 
jects of so deep and recondite a nature. 

The assistance of an Oriental scholar also would 
have been most valuable in enabling the Author to 
cope with the difficulties by which he felt himself 
surrounded. 

b 2 



4 



PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 



In reference to those portions of Egyptian his- 
tory of which he has been compelled to treat, he 
can only assure the reader that the limited number 
of books on this vexed question which he has been 
able to procure have been studied with such assi- 
duity, ability, and fairness, as he could command; 
and the amount of credit conceded to the testimony 
of Manetho will, he believes, be felt to be more 
than justified by the deep and unexpected response 
which Prophecy will be found to utter to the oft- 
disputed statements of this ancient Egyptian histo- 
rian. 

Concerning the unlooked-for conclusion at which 
he has arrived, few, the Author trusts, will be dis- 
posed to stigmatize it as an ignis fatuus arising 
from the unhealthy vapours of an uncultivated soil ; 
but he deems it right to state, that, did he not 
entertain the hope that he had succeeded in striking 
a new chord in the divine harmony of prophecy, the 
present volume, with its manifold crudities and im- 
perfections, would never have been committed to 
the press. 

It may be proper to add, that the following pages 
have been written at a period during which the 
Author was prevented by severe indisposition from 
attending to the ministerial duties of an extensive 
parish; an indisposition which has ultimately in- 
duced him to resign his incumbency. In making 
this statement, he wishes it to be understood that 
it is not put forth with the view of disarming cri- 



PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS . 



5 



ticism, being fully aware that it is by collision of 
opinions that truth is elicited, but rather to supply 
an adequate reason for not having followed his sub- 
ject, during a period of impaired powers of applica- 
tion, into such depths of research as its character 
would seem to demand. On some points, indeed, 
he feels that he has rather raised a question, than 
satisfied an inquiry. Thankful will he be, if he 
has been permitted to originate a train of thought, 
which men of profound erudition may more success- 
fully pursue. 

The Author cannot conclude these preliminary 
observations without acknowledging the deep obli- 
gation he is under to two kind and talented rela- 
tives, who have devoted themselves with unwearied 
assiduity to the labour of preparing his papers for 
the press, and rendering them presentable to the 
public eye. 



PART I. 



CHAPTEE I. 

THE ORIGIN OF IDOLATRY AND SACRIFICE. 

It is a remarkable fact, that how largely soever 
Holy Scripture may speak concerning the existence 
and effects of Idolatry in the world, yet with re- 
gard to the period of its rise, and the history of its 
origin, we have no direct information. The ab- 
sence of such statement has given occasion to 
much difference of opinion among learned men, 
some dating its rise from Cain, others referring it 
to a period subsequent to the Flood. Of these con- 
flicting opinions, the former, to my apprehension, 
bears the greater appearance of probability. But 
even when throwing its origin thus far back to the 
infancy of the world, I incline to the opinion that 
we have not yet reached the fountain whence 
flowed its poisoned waters. In a word, I believe 



THE ORIGIN OF IDOLATRY. 



7 



that in the account given in Holy Scripture of the 
fall of man, we have also the history of the origin 
of idolatry. 

Idolatry is of a twofold character, spiritual and 
material — theoretical and practical. Under the first, 
man enshrines in his mind an ideal which is not 
God, and renders to that ideality the adoration due 
to God alone. Under the second, he selects an 
arbitrary symbol, or embodies in a visible form 
his ideal, whether of the true God, or of any falsity 
which he may have substituted in the place of God, 
and offers to it his homage and worship. The 
first commandment in the Decalogue is directed 
against the mental, the second against the palpable 
sin. God by the Prophet Ezekiel charges his 
people with the infraction of both these laws : 
" Son of man, these men have set up their idols in 
their hearts behold the one transgression ! " and 
put the stumbling-block of their iniquity before 
their face ;" behold the other ! 

To constitute this sin, a bodily act of adoration 
cannot be necessary, for in the case of mental 
idolatry such a mode of demonstration is simply 
impossible. Man must symbolize his ideal, before 
he can bow down to it, and worship it; and even 
when the ideal shall have been clothed in symbol, 
an external act is not the sole mode by which 
idolatry is capable of being manifested. u Any 
thing that has our highest esteem and regard, and 
is the special object of our hope, our trust, and our 



8 



THE ORIGIN OF IDOLATRY 



[PART I. 



care, that we make our God. Thus the covetous 
man is an idolater Idol worship may then be 
perpetrated in a variety of ways ; any one of those 
observances which, in the aggregate, constitute our 
duty to God, when directed to aught which is not 
God, constituting an act of idolatry. To quote the 
words of Bp. Sanderson : " To whom we make 
ourselves servants, him we make the Lord our 
God." The devil is called the god of this world, 
because the men of this evil world by doing him 
service do make a god of him." 

Bearing these truths in mind, I would ask: if 
faith and obedience when directed immediately to 
God constitute an act of worship, and when directed 
to any object other than God, especially when in 
plain opposition to his known will, an act of 
idolatry, was not that fearful surrender by our first 
parents of faith and obedience at the suggestion of 
the serpent the first act of idolatry perpetrated in 
the world ? Yes, surely. When the woman gave ear 
to the voice of the serpent rather than to the voice 
of God, and, tolerating his blasphemous insinuation 
against the truth and mercy of Jehovah, trans- 
ferred her faith and obedience from God to Satan, 
and disobeyed the sole command which it had 
pleased the all-wise Creator to impose upon his 
favoured creatures, she was, according to the whole 
tenor of Holy Writ, guilty of idolatry. " He who 

1 Burkitt. 



CH. I.] 



AND SACRIFICE. 



1) 



gives to the creature what belongs solely and 
exclusively to the Deity is an idolater 2 ." Eve 
rendered to the serpent that faith and obedience 
due to God alone, and in that act of hers idolatry 
sprang into existence. 

The transgression of our first parents is usually 
viewed in the light of a simple act of disobedience ; 
but in truth it was much more than this. It was 
an act of disobedience emanating from a lack of 
faith, — a transfer from God to the serpent, not of 
obedience only, but of faith. Whereas faith has 
been defined as that act of the mind whereby we 
take God at his word, this sin of Adam and Eve 
was an act of the mind, whereby, in distrust of 
God, they took Satan at his word. Here was no 
mere lusting of the eye, — no mere prompting of 
desire, — no mere question as to whether obedience 
should or should not be rendered to the will of 
their heavenly Father; that the apple was eaten 
because it appeared good for food and pleasant to 
the eye, might establish only the fact of disobedi- 
ence; but in the narrative of the Fall is implied 
turpitude of a far darker character. God had said 
of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, 
" Thou shalt not eat of it : for in the day that thou 
eatest thereof thou shalt surely die;" and the ser- 
pent said, " Ye shall not surely die : for God doth 
know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes 



2 M'Caul, Lectures, p. 125. 



10 



THE ORIGIN OF IDOLATRY [PART I. 



shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing- 
good and evil," — two statements so diametrically 
opposed to each other, that to admit the one, of 
necessity compels the rejection of the other. The 
alternative was before them of faith in God or faith 
in the serpent; and they "made God a liar" to 
place their trust and confidence in a creature whom 
that God had placed in subjection to themselves. 
Faith in God would have taught our first parents 
to look upon the apple as the symbol of sorrow and 
of death; faith in Satan led them to regard it as 
their passport to the privileges of Deity. Eve in 
stretching forth her hand to pluck the forbidden 
fruit, raised it to overthrow, if it were possible, the 
throne of God, and elevate the serpent in his place. 
Satan thus became the god of this world, and the 
human race subjected to his service. By this act 
man was transferred from the loving protection of 
a beneficent Father to the wrath and vengeance 
of a justly offended God. This sufficiently accounts 
for the fact of idolatry being throughout the Bible 
so emphatically denounced above all other sins. It 
was the outgoing of all iniquity, and involved every 
other sin in its fearful issue. The nature and guilt 
of original sin it is not my purpose to discuss. I 
shall merely observe, that as idolatry was the parent 
of sin, so was it also the universal sin; for, perpe- 
trated by the first pair, in whom were contained 
the whole human race, it was the sin, and the only 
known sin, which involved every individual natu- 



CH. I.] 



AND SACRIFICE. 



11 



rally engendered of the offspring of Adam, — every 
member of the vast family of mankind, — in its tre- 
mendous consequences. 

As idolatry had its initiative in a transfer of 
faith, so the instauration of faith is its antidote. 
To meet this exigency, an object of faith was imme- 
diately set forth by God in the promise, " The seed 
of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." 
The covenant of obedience having failed, that of 
faith was instituted, and a system of types ap- 
pointed at once to test and demonstrate the exist- 
ence of that faith in the heart, and to ensure its 
perpetuation among the successive generations of 
mankind. 

When I say the covenant of faith was instituted, 
that of obedience having failed, I would not be un- 
derstood to imply that faith formed no component 
of the Paradisiacal covenant. The foregoing ob- 
servations tend to the opposite conclusion. The 
earlier covenant, equally with that instituted on the 
Fall, had as its requirements on the part of man, faith 
and obedience ; but the faith of that earlier covenant 
was simply this : that what God had promised and 
threatened, He would surely perform. The faith of 
the later covenant was more complex. Without dis- 
carding the earlier elements, it superadded others of 
a totally different character ; and, because God would 
punish sin, involved the recognition of a vicarious 
obedience, a vicarious death, and a vicarious title to 
salvation. Man's spiritual nature had received a 



12 



THE ORIGIN OF IDOLATRY [PART I. 



deadly wound, and that perfect obedience, which was 
thenceforth impossible to the first Adam and his 
posterity, was to be wrought out in the person of a 
second Adam, on whom was inflicted the penalty 
of a world's disobedience. " He was wounded for 
our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities." Faith 
in the efficacy of his atonement became the basis on 
which was founded the restoration of man to the 
favour of his offended God. 

I do not presume to decide to what extent the 
acceptance of this great and saving truth was held 
essential among the successive generations of the 
old world; — probably the requirement varied with 
opportunity of knowledge conferred; — or how far 
the incarnation of Deity in the promised seed was 
understood and anticipated : but whatever the degree 
of appreciation of the scheme devised, its vital 
element was clearly the utter abnegation of personal 
merit, and the trusting, for acceptance with God, 
to the merits and atonement of another. 

On the origin of Sacrifice, as on that of idolatry, 
Holy Scripture is silent. We first learn its exist- 
ence in connexion with the rejection of one of the 
sacrificers. The question respecting its rise is not, 
however, so complex as that concerning the com- 
mencement of idolatry, the whole difficulty being 
comprised in this alternative : either it originated 
in the command of God, or it was the device of 
man. Notwithstanding so much has been urged 



CH. I.] 



ASD SACRIFICE. 



13 



in favour of the former position that any further 
observation may appear superfluous, I shall venture 
the following remarks. 

1st. The slaughter of animals immediately 
upon the Fall has been inferred from the fact 
that God supplied to Adam and Eve skins of 
beasts for clothing. This circumstance, combined 
with the opinion entertained by the generality of 
learned men that animal food was not permitted 
until after the Flood, almost compels the inference 
that the slaughter of these animals was connected 
with the rite of sacrifice. If these premises be 
admitted the inquiry is restricted within very 
narrow limits. 

The supposition that the idea of animal sacrifice 
could have originated with man before he had been 
summoned into the presence of God after the Fall 
cannot for a moment be entertained. No thought 
of atonement, whether vicarious or otherwise, pre- 
sented itself to the minds of the guilty pair. Their 
sole expedient to cover the nakedness of sin, was 
to sew fig-leaves together and make themselves 
aprons, and to hide themselves from the presence of 
the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. 

2ndly. The skins of beasts being given for a 
covering at the termination of this awful interview, 
leads to the conclusion that animal sacrifice was 
instituted in the interval between its commencement 
and its close. 

And now it may be asked, with whom would it 



14 THE ORIGIN OF IDOLATRY [PART I. 

originate? With fallen man, dumb before his 
outraged Maker, or with the offended, yet all- 
merciful Creator defining the terms of that new 
covenant, by which the terrible consequences 
of man's transgression were to be averted ? In 
my judgment this question admits but of one 
answer. 

Srdly. The division of beasts into clean and 
unclean comports only with such a conclusion. It 
is connected in Holy Scripture with sacrificial rites, 
without any reference whatever to food 3 ; a fact 
which indicates an expression of the will of the 
Almighty relative to sacrifice. This classification 
could not have arisen in the mind of man ; it must 
have originated with the Deity. 

But farther, at this early period when sin had so 
recently brought death into the world, could the 
bare idea of the slaughter of an animal have sug- 
gested itself to man's imagination ? Adam, as yet, 
scarce understood what death was, much less 
slaughter, or by what means it was to be 
effected. And this argument acquires additional 
force, from the consideration that in sacrifice death 
was effected by effusion of blood. The knowledge 
that " the blood is the life " must either have 
proceeded from a deep insight into organic animal 
structure, or have been imparted by the Creator of 
both man and beast. The former hypothesis is 

3 Gen. vii. 2 ; viii. 20 ; is. 3. 



id 



CH. I.] 



AND SACRIFICE. 



15 



palpably untenable; we have therefore no alter- 
native but to adopt the latter. 

Once more. Prior to the divine promulgation of 
the fact that without shedding of blood there is no 
remission, in connexion with the revelation of the 
promised Redeemer, the origination in the mind of 
man of the idea of vicarious suffering seems an 
impossibility, and after the doctrine of one sacrifice 
for the sins of the whole world had been enunciated, 
would, unless instituted by divine command, appear 
a derogation from the promised all-sufficient sacri- 
fice of the Cross. It was only as a type that its 
place in the divine scheme could be admissible; 
and one indispensable characteristic of a Scripture 
type clearly is that it should originate with God, 
and not with man. It was, moreover, only from 
this its typical character that its value was derived, 
and a rite not terminating in itself, but deriving 
efficacy only in proportion as it was regarded 
externally and prospectively, is just such a remedy 
as man could never have devised. Yet this was 
precisely the nature of animal sacrifice. The blood 
of bulls and of goats could not take away sin ; it 
was only because adumbrating the precious blood- 
shedding of Christ, that God said of the sacrifices 
of the elder dispensation : " I have given," not 
accepted, " blood upon the altar to make atonement 
for your souls, for it is the blood that maketh 
atonement for the soul." 

In a word, supposing sacrifice to have been of 



16 



THE ORIGIN OF IDOLATRY [PART I. 



man's device, it is difficult to conceive how man 
dared to offer, or God vouchsafed to accept it. 
Admitting it to have been a divine institution, we 
at once perceive how adequate an exponent it was 
of God's purposes and man's necessities. This, and 
this alone, renders intelligible the marked proofs of 
divine acceptance recorded from the time of Abel 
to the delivery of the Law by Moses, when its con- 
tinuance was enjoined under the most awful penal- 
ties. 

All these circumstances considered, we are almost 
compelled to conclude, not only that animal sacri- 
fice originated in a divine command, but that Adam 
and Eve performed their first solemn act of sacrifice 
under the immediate guidance of the Deity, previous 
to their expulsion from Paradise, and that God then 
and there, by practical as well as oral instruction, 
unfolded to our first parents the stupendous mystery 
of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the 
world. 

Viewed under such an aspect how solemn the 
origin of sacrifice ! At such a momentous crisis 
how appropriate its celebration! The Almighty 
Father directing the guilty pair in each particular of 
this divine institute, regulating and explaining its 
several particulars, animating their drooping souls 
by this type of ineffable mercies, to be more fully 
revealed hereafter. And they, heart-broken, bowed 
down by guilt and shame, with devout attention 
listening to the divine word, scrupulously regu- 



CH. I.] 



AND SACRIFICE. 



17 



lating their movements in obedience to the divine 
will, and from God's uttered word and enjoined 
act, imbibing the sacred aliment of faith and hope ; 
seeing Christ, albeit through a glass darkly, know- 
ing in part, understanding as children, yet trusting 
to know hereafter, even as they themselves were 
known. Yes ; it is most reasonable to suppose that 
the covenant of faith was inaugurated by sacrifice ; 
that the fallen progenitors of the human race were, 
ere they quitted Eden, initiated into the mysteries 
of a rite which pointed to their future restoration 
through the seed of the woman. How sublime the 
thought, that before the earthly Paradise was barred 
against them, an act of sacrifice had become the 
pledge of a future glory, eternal in the heavens. 

As animal sacrifice originated in divine com- 
mandment, so also a Place of sacrifice probably 
formed a portion of the divine appointment. From 
the fact that Cain and Abel brought an offering to 
the Lord, it has been argued, that " sacrifices were 
not offered in any place according to the fancy of 
the worshipper 4 and the exclamation of Cain, 
after God had passed sentence upon him for 
his act of fratricide, "Behold, thou hast driven 
me out this day from the face of the earth; and 
from thy face shall I be hid," coupled with the 
subsequent statement of the sacred historian, that 
" Cain went out from the presence of the Lord," 
4 Kirby, Bridgwater Treatise, vol. i., lxiii. 

C 



18 



THE ORIGIN OF IDOLATRY [PART I. 



would seem to indicate " that God was present in 
some restricted sense in one particular place, by 
departing from which Cain was hid from his face, 
whatever was intended by that expression, ' From 
thy face shall I be hid.' Not from his omniscience 
and omnipresence, for there is no such thing as 
being hid from the all-seeing eye of God, or flying 
from his presence, which is every where, but from 
his favour and good will, and the outward tokens 
of it, as well as from the place where his She- 
chinah, or Sacred Majesty, was, and which was the 
place of divine worship, and where good men met, 
and worshipped God, and offered sacrifice to 
Him 5 ." 

God dwelleth in light which cannot be ap- 
proached. " No man can behold him as he is, and 
live." A portion, however, of that glory which in 
its integrity would destroy, has from time to time 
been manifested to mankind. The glowing flame 
of the Shechinah tabernacled in the cloud, and 
indicated the more immediate presence of the 
Omnipotent, when it pleased Him to reveal Him- 
self to our fallen race. Whether such were his 
appearance in Paradise we know not. Probably 
even then the voice of the Lord walked in the 
garden, "his brightness as the light, with a thick 
cloud to cover him, and riding upon the wings of 
the wind." Probably, too, after the expulsion of 



5 Gill's Com., Gen. iv. 14. 16. 



CH. I.] 



AND SACRIFICE. 



19 



our first parents from the garden of Eden, it was 
to its eastern gate, guarded by cherubim and a 
flaming sword, that Cain and Abel approached 
when they came to offer their respective sacrifices 
to the Lord. Here that flame of fire broke forth 
and devoured the firstling of the flock which Abel 
brought, thus proving that God had respect to him 
and his offering. Here God manifested his re- 
jection of the offering of Cain by refusing to con- 
sume his sacrifice by holy fire. 

If this be true, then we shall arrive at a very 
interesting conclusion, viz. that God Almighty ap- 
peared to his faithful servants in the Old World in 
a set place in a flame of fire between the Cherubim, 
as He did to his chosen people in the Holy of 
Holies in the New. That the eastern gate of 
Eden was before the Flood, what the Tabernacle 
and subsequently the Temple were after it — figures 
of that true Sanctuary which the Lord pitched and 
not man, whither Christ entered by his own blood 
once for all, to make a full, perfect, and sufficient 
sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of 
the whole world. 

It may possibly be objected, that the flaming 
sword at the gate of Paradise was an instrument of 
vengeance: not so the flame of fire in the Taber- 
nacle. True, the flaming sword threatened with 
destruction whosoever should presume to break in 
to take of the tree of life, but so also in the Taber- 
nacle, when Nadab and Abihu offered strange fire 

c 2 



20 



THE ORIGIN OF IDOLATRY [PART I. 



before the Lord, "there went out fire from the 
Lord, and devoured them." Under ordinary cir- 
cumstances, both probably ascended heavenward in 
lambent form. It was only when any attempt was 
made to approach otherwise than in the way com- 
manded, that the devouring flame darted forth as 
lightning to consume the offender. 

But there is another line of argument by which 
the objection may be met. It has been observed 
with regard to the flaming sword, that the words 
in the original may either be understood meta- 
phorically of a flame like a sword, or be translated 
"a consuming flame," the original word often sig- 
nifying an exhausting and violent heat ; that the 
word which we translate " turned every way " is in 
Hithpael, and signifies an action upon itself; that 
it is used in the same conjugation in other passages, 
where the sense seems to be that of revolving or 
rolling ; and that Ezekiel in his vision of the cheru- 
bim, describing the fire that preceded their pre- 
sence, says that it enfolded itself 6 . 

Mr. Kirby, to whom I am indebted for the fore- 
going remarks, further observes on Gen. iii. 24, 
that " the word which, in our translation, is ren- 
dered '-placed'' means properly caused to dwell, or 
placed in a tabernacle" "and that the word in 
question is used by Jeremiah to denote God's pre- 
sence in his Tabernacle in Shiloh." Both these 

fi Kirby, Bridg. Treat., vol. i., preface, lxv. 



CH. I.] 



AND SACRIFICE. 



21 



remarks tend to confirm the idea that the Jewish 
Tabernacle and the access to Paradise were of a 
kindred character, that the devouring flame which 
burned there was the visible symbol of the presence 
of the Deity tabernacling among men, and that the 
eastern gate of Eden was "connected with the 
worship of God after the Fall 7 ." 

" The Jewish Tabernacle, which, as Philo calls 
it, was a portable temple, every reader of Scripture 
knows was divided into two principal parts, or, 
according to the Epistle to the Hebrews, taber- 
nacles, the first of which was called the Holy 
Place, and the second the most Holy place or the 
Holy of Holies. This last Tabernacle is expressly 
stated in Scripture to be a figure of heaven, 1 For 
Christ is not entered into the holy places made 
with hands, which are the figures of the true, but 
into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of 
God for us ;' where the allusion is evidently made 
to the annual entry of the Jewish high priest into 
the second Tabernacle as representing Christ's entry 
into Heaven itself, where the presence of God was 
manifested 8 ." 

We shall then regard Paradise as the type of 
Heaven, and its eastern gate as the symbol of those 
sacred portals closed against us by transgression, 
and opened to us by the all-sufficient sacrifice of 
Christ. Between Eden and the Tabernacle, how- 



7 Kirby, p. lxiii. 



8 Kirby, p. lviii. 



22 



THE ORIGIN OF IDOLATRY 



[PART I. 



ever, albeit both types of Heaven, there existed 
this marked difference; the symbol of the Divine 
Presence dwelt at the entrance to Eden, forbidding 
all access to the Paradise beyond ; — in the Holy of 
Holies the case was reversed; there, the Shechinah 
dwelt, not on the threshold, but in the innermost 
part of the Tabernacle. The veil between the two 
Tabernacles responded to the gate of Eden; the 
visible presence of God abode upon the Mercy-seat 
surrounded by the cherubim and palm-trees typical, 
not of the entrance to, but of the interior of 
Paradise. Why was this ? The law was a school- 
master to bring men to Christ, and the entry of the 
high priest once a year within the veil was, as we 
have seen, a type of the entry of Christ into heaven, 
by his own blood, to make atonement for the sins 
of the whole world. The presence then of God at 
the gate of Paradise testified that on account of 
transgression heaven was barred against man : the 
removal of that Presence to the interior of the 
Holy of Holies, and the privilege of ingress ac- 
corded to the Jewish high priest, was an assurance 
that by the atonement of the promised Messiah the 
barrier was to be removed and Heaven's gate re- 
opened. In accordance with this symbolism, when 
He who bare our sins in his own body on the tree 
gave up the ghost, the very first of the significant 
prodigies which followed was that the veil of the 
temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. 
We have seen reason to conclude that the rise of 



CH. I.] 



AND SACRIFICE. 



23 



Idolatry is coincident with the fall of man, and 
that in the history of the one is enfolded the origin 
of the other; that that old serpent called the 
Devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world, 
was the first object of idolatry, the dread invisible 
Spirit of evil incarnate in that subtle creature, and 
constituting it at once his servant and symbol; 
that as idolatrv had its initiative in a lack of 
faith, so the restoration of faith was its antidote; 
that the covenant of faith which was then ori- 
ginated involved, not only the acknowledgment of 
the truth of God, but the recognition of his justice 
and mercy, to be, in the fulness of time, evidenced 
conjointly by his punishment of sin, and pardon of 
the sinner. We observe, moreover, that this new 
element of faith, involving as it did the doctrine of 
vicarious death and atonement, originated the in- 
stitution of animal sacrifice, as an acknowledg- 
ment that "without shedding of blood there is 
no remission;" as an evidence of faith in the ex- 
piation to be effected by the promised seed of the 
woman; and as a means of perpetuating through the 
successive generations of mankind the expectation 
of his bruising the serpent's head; that, not only 
was animal sacrifice instituted by God, but that the 
place at which it should be offered formed also a 
portion of his expressed will, and that the eastern 
gate of Eden, symbolic of the entrance to heaven, 
was the divinely appointed spot where the She- 
chinah, or visible token of the Divine Presence, 



24 



THE ORIGIN OF IDOLATRY [PART I. 



tabernacled between the cherubim; that thither 
men brought their sacrifices to the most High, 
looking forward with humble confidence to the 
time when that personal access to Paradise which 
was now denied, should be attainable through the 
promised Saviour, and they should have a right to 
the tree of life, and eat of it freely and for ever. 

Assuming these views to be correct, we cannot, 
I think, fail to discover further traces of idolatry 
within a comparatively short period of the Fall. If 
animal sacrifice was a divine institution, embracing 
at once the confession of man's need, and God's 
promise of pardon through the Seed of the woman, 
the very first act of sacrifice recorded in the Bible 
exhibits, on the part of one of the worshippers, a 
departure in spirit, no less than in form, from the 
law of the new covenant. And this sufficiently 
accounts for the prominent position which this 
particular sacrifice occupies in Sacred Writ. Not 
that the sacrifice of Cain and Abel was the first 
offered to God; Adam and Eve, also, doubtless 
brought their sacrifices, and thereby manifested 
their faith in those gracious promises of the second 
covenant, vouchsafed to them after their transgres- 
sion of the first. But it is the fact, not only of com- 
pliance with, but of deviation from, the revealed 
will of God, which the Holy Spirit has thought fit 
to record; not alone Abel's obedience, but Cain's 
contumacy and defiance. I am not viewing this 
act of Cain as an instance of idolatry. Here was 



CH. I.] 



AND SACRIFICE. 



25 



no transfer of obedience from God to a creature. 
It would indicate rather an intermediate step in the 
transition from Deity to idols. It was will- worship 
as introductory to idol-worship; the serving God 
after the devices of his own heart, preparatory to 
not serving Him at all. 

If, as is generally supposed, " God gave blood 
upon the altar to make atonement for the soul," 
when the necessity of a reconciliation for sin arose, 
then the offering of Cain was not only the first, but, 
considering the recent appointment of animal 
sacrifice, the most flagrant instance of will-worship 
recorded in Holy Writ. The act of bringing merely 
the fruit of the ground, instead of a lamb, for a 
burnt-offering, indicated that he rejected the doc- 
trine of the atonement, and offered his sacrifice to 
God simply as the Creator of the world, not as 
reconciling that world to himself in Christ, and 
would seem to intimate, that in his estimation, all 
things continued as they had been since the foun- 
dation of the world, and that he regarded himself 
as in much the same position as when " the Lord 
God created man in his own image." It would 
appear as though he ignored the Fall, and held as 
a thing of nought the promise of a Redeemer. To 
him the position that without shedding of blood is no 
remission was foolishness, and a life of faith an idle 
dream. Thus, in the very earliest instance of worship 
recorded in the Bible, a tone of mind is manifested 
in one of the worshippers which incited him to set 



26 THE ORIGIN OF IDOLATRY [PART I. 

up his own depraved judgment in direct opposition 
to the revealed will of God. In Adam's firstborn 
is exhibited the first example of that self-sufficiency, 
that vain elevation of the fleshly mind, which is 
abomination in the sight of God 9 . Unchecked by 
God's rebuke, untamed by his expostulation, we 
see it running riot from will-worship to murder; at 
the call of obedience refusing to shed the blood of 
an animal, at the suggestion of envy daring to shed 
that of a brother. In the primogenial inheritor of 
the degeneration of human nature we behold the 
prototype of those men pourtrayed by St. Paul, 
vain in their imaginations, whose foolish heart was 
darkened, professing themselves to be wise and 
becoming fools. In Cain we see that very state of 
mind and heart which the Apostle, speaking of 
idolatry in its grosser and material form, image- 
worship, asserts to be its precursor and progenitor. 

Sublapsarian idolatry may be considered under 
two different aspects, either as a gradual forgetful- 

9 Should the supposition be correct that Eve imagined her 
firstborn to be that seed of the woman who should bruise the 
serpent's head, and the rendering, " I have gotten the man, the 
Lord," be the true rendering, it requires no great penetration to 
divine the source whence proceeds the will-worship and revenge 
of Gain. The respect paid to him by his parents not only as 
the firstborn of the human race, but as the redeemer of mankind, 
would naturally have the effect of developing that proud and 
overbearing character which drew down upon its possessor the 
signal wrath of the Almighty. 



CH. I.] 



AND SACRIFICE. 



27 



ness of, and departure from God, or as a negation 
of his right of sovereignty, and an open revolt 
against his authority. In either case the presump- 
tion would be that it originated with Cain. In 
seeking to trace its progress under the latter and - ^dt7K-&JT" 
more modified form, I would not be understood to 
regard its other phase as altogether devoid of 
probability. We will, however, proceed to consider 
it as a declension originating in a humanly -devised 
symbolism of God, not in a symbolism of that which 
is not God. 

When, after the murder of his brother, Cain 
quitted the land of his birth, he went out also from 
the presence of the Lord. He left behind him that 
brightness of God's glory which glowed at the gate 
of Eden. He lost that flame of fire between the 
cherubim which indicated the especial presence of 
the Almighty, and designated the spot where He 
willed to be worshipped. And dwelling eastward of 
Eden, with no fixed place, and no especial object, 
to which to direct his worship, what so calculated 
to be welcomed as a substitute for the Shechinah as 
the sun ? It may be questioned, indeed, whether 
his adoption of that luminary as the symbol of the 
Deity suggested his removal eastward toward its 
rising, or whether, as it arose before him on his 
journey in gorgeous splendour, he gradually learned 
to adore it. In other words, was the direction he 
took the procuring cause of his idolatry, or was 
idolatry the cause of his taking that direction ? 



28 



THE ORIGIN OF IDOLATRY [PART I. 



Be this as it may, to that glowing orb it probably 
was that Cain directed his homage, and, in after 
time, instead of teaching his children to seek God 
where his presence dwelt, and to worship at the 
gate of paradise, like Jeroboam at a later period, 
who set up his altar at Bethel, he established a 
rival shrine to separate more effectually his off- 
spring from the people of the Lord. 

But there was another cause which might have 
its influence with Cain in inducing him to embrace 
the worship of the sun. The very curse which 
God had denounced against him, " when thou 
tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield 
unto thee her strength," might prompt him to bow 
in adoration to the orb of day. As a cultivator of 
the ground, Cain would readily appreciate the 
power of the sun in developing the resources of the 
vegetable kingdom, — would perceive that light and 
heat are essential to the earth's fertility, — that the 
sun is the great ostensible cause of the herb bear- 
ing seed, and the fruit tree her fruit; — and he 
might naturally seek to propitiate that "greater 
light," in the hope that it would neutralize that 
curse of barrenness pronounced upon the land 
where he might chance to dwell. Lost to the 
favour of the Almighty, wandering farther and 
farther from the visible presence of that God who 
had threatened him with evil, he might seek to 
solace himself with the life-giving beams of an 
inferior agent, from whom he hoped to derive no- 



CH. I.] 



AND SACRIFICE. 



29 



thing but good. Such are some of the considera- 
tions I would suggest in favour of the hypothesis 
that Cain was the first idolater after the Fall, and 
that the object of his idolatry was the sun. 

Here, possibly, if left to themselves, Cain and his 
posterity might have paused — have been content 
to worship the sun, first in the place of the She- 
chin ah, and then in the stead of God. We must, 
however, bear in mind that man was not only a 
fallen creature, but that the dread Spirit of evil by 
whom his fall had been effected, was ever seeking 
to extend his power over the creatures whose ruin 
he had accomplished — to rivet the chains he had 
forged for his victims. The victory gained, he 
sought to secure its permanency; — the degradation 
of the human race achieved, he strove to establish 
among them an utterly degraded form of religion, 
— to substitute the slavery of sin for the service of 
holiness, and himself as the object of adoration in 
the place of God. The deification of the sun as 
the fountain of life was but an ignoble triumph ; 
the enshrining himself as the creator and governor 
of the universe an exploit worthy even of the arch 
Spirit of evil. Such seems to have been the daring 
aim of Satan, and the history of idolatry proves 
that he was permitted to be not unsuccessful in his 
design. 

" The co-existence of a principle of evil or dark- 
ness with the principle of good and light, their 
contests for supremacy, the temporary success of 



30 



THE ORIGIN OF IDOLATRY. 



[PART I. 



the former, and its ultimate defeat, appear to have 
constituted, from the earliest periods, essential 
features in the religious tenets of a large portion of 
mankind. They thus sought to account for the 
antagonistic power of evil exemplified in maw, by 
the bad passions, moral and physical infirmities, 
and death; and in nature, by those awful pheno- 
mena which occasionally visit the face of the earth, 
or even by the periodical decay to which nature 
herself is subject V 

The operation of these two antagonistic prin- 
ciples would probably give rise to a dualism in the 
religious belief of the old world, and the creed of 
the seceders from the Divine Unity (whether that 
Unity were worshipped through the medium of 
symbolism or not) would comprise two supreme 
objects of worship, the Author of all good, and the 
author of all evil, the former a purely benevolent, 
the latter a purely malevolent Being, answering to 
the light and darkness found alike in the natural 
and in the moral world 2 . 

Of the evil, moral and physical, so prevalent in 
the world, the serpent would naturally be selected 
as the type. Intense must have been the aversion, 
unutterable the horror, entertained by our first 
parents for this reptile from the period of their 
fall; a horror increased and perpetuated by the 

1 Layard's Nineveh and Babylon, p. 350. 

2 See The Christ of History, p. 125, and Faber, Pag. Idol, 
vol. i. p. 400. 



CH. I.] 



AND SACRIFICE. 



31 



enmity put by God between the tempter and these 
the victims of his wiles. His very presence could 
have excited only feelings of shame, of terror, and 
of abhorrence, emotions too deeply rooted to have 
been confined to themselves alone; they must, they 
have been, transmitted to their remotest posterity. 
The Serpent, as the ostensible originator of evil, 
must then have been adopted as its primaeval 
symbol, and as such would probably at first be 
feared, not worshipped. He did not, however, 
long occupy this position ; and his translation from 
the abyss of ignominy to the shrine of deity is an 
index of the state of unutterable degradation to 
which, through his instrumentality, the human 
mind had been reduced. 

That the evil principle was originally wor- 
shipped from fear will scarce admit of a question. 
Men sacrificed to Satan in order to ward off those 
evils with which he had power to afflict the human 
race. They propitiated his favour lest he should 
visit them in some of his manifold forms of de- 
struction. They sought to appease because they 
dared not resist, and could not endure. 

On this point the testimony of Mr. Deane, who 
has written so largely and so successfully on " the 
worship of the serpent," is too valuable to be passed 
over in silence. His opinion that this remarkable 
portion of pagan symbolism originated in the fact, 
that Satan under this form seduced our first parents 
to sin and misery is clear and decisive. " The pro- 



32 



THE OKIGIN OF IDOLATRY [PART I. 



gress of the sacred serpent from Paradise to Peru, 
is," he says, " one of the most remarkable pheno- 
mena in mythological history, and to be accounted 
for only upon the supposition that a corrupted tra- 
dition of the serpent in paradise had been handed 
down from generation to generation." And again, 
" we cannot, without violence to all rules of proba- 
bility, reject the consequence, that the prototype of 
this idolatry was the serpent in paradise." 

To be worshipped as the evil principle, and from 
the suggestions of fear, would be an essential point 
gained by the arch-enemy; to be propitiated, not 
resisted, an important step in his ambitious de- 
signs. But man's infatuation plunged him into a 
yet deeper abyss of religious error. Instead of the 
KaKodaiiiwv (cacodsemon), the serpent became the 
ayaOoSaipuv 3 (agathodsemon). He was heralded as 
the beneficent Creator — enthroned in the sun — 
transformed into an angel of light. 

Whether a system so antithetical to all truth per- 
vaded the antediluvian world we know not. Pro- 
bably, however, idolatry both with respect to the 
sun and the serpent, existed in those early times. 

3 Sacrifice being the appointed mode of propitiation (see 
Gen. viii. 21) when the propitiation of the evil principle be- 
came man's object, that object would be sought through the 
offering of sacrifice to Satan (see 1 Cor. x. 20). Thus sacrifice 
would be offered at once to God and Satan, and when Satan 
became the ayado^nifiu)^ then sacrifice would be transferred 
from God to Satan. 



CH. I.] 



AND SACRIFICE. 



33 



In fact, when we reflect upon the extreme wicked- 
ness of the old world, we may fairly infer that 
the worship of Satan under the form of the serpent 
had been developed during the many ages which 
intervened between the Fall and the Deluge. It 
is difficult to suppose that he became an object 
of idolatry only after the time, when God rose up 
in judgment to stay the headlong progress of crime 
by the waters of a flood. 

From the time when Cain was driven from the 
land of his birth, it is to be presumed that the 
intercourse between his offspring and the other 
descendants of Adam must have materially re- 
laxed, if not altogether ceased. While the former 
would sink deeper into idolatry, the latter, we 
are told, "began to call upon the name of the 
Lord." Happy had it been for the children of 
Seth had this separation been perpetual. Such, 
however, was not the case. " The sons of God saw 
the daughters of men that they were fair; and they 
took them wives of all which they chose." The 
result was soon apparent. It happened to them as 
to Solomon in after-times, their wives turned away 
their hearts after other gods ; and their hearts were 
not perfect with the Lord their God, as was the 
heart of Seth their father. Thus it came to pass 
that the whole race of man became involved in one 
vortex of depravity. Then God broke up the foun- 
tains of the great deep, and opened the windows 



04 



THE ORIGIN OF IDOLATRY 



[PART I. 



of heaven, and all flesh perished in the mighty 
waters. 

Yet even this terrible visitation of the Almighty, 
serving as it did to check the gross corruptions of 
the old world, failed to eradicate idolatry wholly 
from the earth. And the supposition that Ham 
was the post-diluvial father of idolatry seems not 
without foundation; for in his son Canaan, whom 
Noah cursed, that corrupt system soon arose, as 
from a tomb, in all the most abhorrent features 
of its frightful deformity. Nay, the very instru- 
ment of salvation to faithful Noah and his family, 
Satan succeeded in perverting to a fresh element 
of idolatrous worship. The ark which preserved 
the patriarch from the overwhelming waters became 
a new object of adoration, and took a prominent 
place in the ceremonies and superstitions of a de- 
generate world. 

That the ark, as a symbol of safety, should enter 
into the scheme of heathen mythology is by no 
means surprising. Indeed, as such it finds a place 
in the typical language of Holy Scripture, and is 
employed by St. Peter as a figure of the Christian 
rite of " baptism which doth now save us." But, if 
we entertain the position that idolatry was ante- 
diluvian, and that Ham was the person by whom it 
was transmitted to post-diluvial ages, then it would 
evidently become a yet more important feature in 
the rites of paganism ; for, under this aspect, it 



CH. I.] AND SACKIFICE. 35 

would be regarded not only as the instrument by 
which Ham was preserved, but as the temple in 
which idolatry was enshrined during the Flood, 
and perpetuated to succeeding generations. 

And this view of the subject throws light upon 
the fact, that in idolatrous countries, Ham so fully 
shared with Noah in the honour of being the great 
arkite father. For while historical records would 
forbid their ignoring Noah as the one post-diluvial 
parent, they would naturally elevate Ham to a posi- 
tion of at least equal dignity as the spiritual patri- 
arch who had preserved and handed down to his 
posterity that idolatrous system which they vene- 
rated, as embodying the sacred verities of religion. 



d 2 



36 



IDOLATRY IN EGYPT. 



[PART I. 



CHAPTER II. 

IDOLATRY IN EGYPT. 

We have conjectured that idolatry existed in the 
world hefore the Deluge ; that this terrible engine 
of God's wrath failed to sweep it from the earth ; 
that one even of the inmates of the ark was not 
free from its infatuation; that it nestled in the 
bosom of Ham as he floated over the mighty 
waters, and was through his instrumentality trans- 
mitted to the after generations of mankind. 

In looking at the posterity of Ham, we shall be 
struck by the circumstance that he was the father 
of Cush, of Mizraim (Misr), and of Canaan, the 
patriarchs of those remarkable nations who, in sub- 
sequent ages, exercised such an influence for evil 
over the chosen people of God. From the descend- 
ants of Mm rod, the son of Cush, was it that Terah, 
the father of Abram, learned to serve strange gods, 
of whose worship the Israelites in succeeding genera- 
tions were by no means guiltless; from the sons of 
Mizraim, (Misr) during their sojourn by the waters 
of the Nile, they became deeply tainted with Egyp- 



CH. II.] 



IDOLATKY IN EGYPT. 



37 



tian idolatry ; and from the seven nations of Canaan 
whom they permitted to share with them the land 
which God had bestowed as their own peculiar 
possession, they imbibed so deep a love for the old 
national worship, that it needed a seventy years' 
captivity to eradicate the infatuation from their 
minds. 

In his last address to the Israelites, the aged 
Joshua points to the idols of the three national 
systems in succession, as " the gods which their 
fathers worshipped on the other side of the flood, 
and in Egypt," and "the gods of the Amorites 
among whom they dwelt." 

We will proceed to examine some of the leading- 
features of Egyptian Idolatry. 

Egypt is called the land of Ham, and it has in 
consequence been considered probable that the 
aged patriarch betook himself with his son Miz- 
raim (Misr) to that beautiful land, and there 
closed his mortal career 1 . 

Be this as it may, it seems to be a generally 
received opinion that after death he became an 
object of adoration. " Ammon, or Hammon, or 
Hamaun, or Jupiter-Ammon, a celebrated god of 
the Egyptians," says Calmet, " was probably a dei- 
fication of Ham, whose posterity peopled Africa, 
and who was the father of Mizraim, the founder of 
the Egyptian polity and power." "It has been 



1 Calmet, voce Amnion. 



38 



IDOLATRY IN EGYPT. [PART I. 



queried whether Ammon were not an Egyptian 
compound, Ham-on, i. e. Ham, the sun ? On being 
the Egyptian name for that luminary, afterwards 
idolatrously applied to Ham." On this point, 
Bryant speaks positively : " Ham by the Egyptians 
was compounded Am -on, auwv, and a^wv." " Ham 
and Cham are words which imply heat, and the 
consequences of heat." "Ham, as a deity, was 
esteemed the sun : he was the Zeus of Greece, and 
Jupiter of Latium V 

Concerning the shrine of this ancient deity, the 
following extract from the same profound scholar 
may be deemed interesting as referring to the 
Deluge : " The custom of carrying the deity in a 
shrine placed in a boat, and supported by priests, 
was in use among the Egyptians. ... It is a cir- 
cumstance which deserves our notice, as it appears 
to be very ancient, and had doubtless a mys- 
terious allusion. We have three curious exam- 
ples of it among Bishop Pocock's valuable speci- 
mens of antiquity which he collected in those 
parts. He met with them at Luxorein or Leuco- 
rein, near Carnac, in the Thebai's; but mentions 
not what they relate to: nor do I know of any 
writer who has attended to their history. ... It is 
plain that they all relate to the same religious 
ceremony, and very happily concur to explain each 
other. It may be worth observing that the ori- 



2 Calmet, voce Amnion. 



CH. II.] 



IDOLATRY IN EGYPT. 



39 



ginals whence these copies were taken are of the 
highest antiquity, and probably the most early 
specimens of sculpture in the world. Diodorus 
mentions that the shrine of Ammon had eighty 
persons to attend it; but Dr. Pocock, when he 
took these copies, had not time to be precisely 
accurate in this article. In his specimens, the 
greatest number of attendants are twenty : eighteen 
support the boat, and one precedes with a kind of 
sceptre ; another brings up the rear, having in his 
hand a rod or staff, which had undoubtedly a mystic 
allusion. The whole seems to be emblematical; 
and . . . related to a great preservation which was 
most religiously recorded, and became the principal 
subject of all their mysteries. The person in the 
shrine was their great ancestor, and the whole 
process was a memorial of the Deluge, the history 
of which must have been pretty recent when these 
works were executed in Egypt \" 

The Oracles of the heathen are thought to have 
originated in the great patriarch of the Nile 4 ; and 
with this supposition the celebrated temple of 
Jupiter- Ammon in Africa fully agrees. "Phi," 
says Bryant, u signifies a mouth, also language and 
speech. It is used by the Ammonians, or de- 
scendants of Ham, particularly for the voice and 
oracle of any god, and subjoined to the name of 



3 Vol. i. p. 311. 



4 Vol. i. p. 110. 



40 



IDOLATRY IN EGYPT. 



[part L 



the deity. The chief oracle of the first ages was 
that of Ham, who was worshipped as the sun, and 
styled El and Or. Hence (these) oracles are in 
consequence called Amphi, Omphi, Alphi, Elphi, 
Urphi, Orphi. It is made to signify in the book 
of Genesis 1 the voice or command of Pharaoh . . . 
it being no unusual thing among the ancients to 
call the words of their prince the voice of God V 
Accordingly, we shall find " the commandment of 
Pharaoh" rendered in the margin "the mouth of 
Pharaoh/' the original being HJHS *£) (Phi Pha- 
raoh), and in Numbers iii. 16, the word of the 
Lord is rendered the mouth of the Lord, the word 

(Phi) being used there also. 

Ham is also supposed to have been the father of 
magic 7 , and the celebrated encounter between the 
Jewish lawgiver and the magicians in Egypt, re- 
lated in the book of Exodus, proves that the art, 
which their great forefather is reputed to have 
originated, his descendants were by no means dis- 
inclined to pursue. 

I pass on to make some observations on the 
Worship of the Serpent, as it obtained in the land 
of Ham. We have supposed the first object of 
idolatrous worship to have been the sun, venerated 
originally as the sign or symbol of the all-per- 

5 Ch. xlv. 21. 6 See further, and vol. i. p. 313. 

7 Calmet, voce Ham. 



CH. II.] 



IDOLATRY IN EGYPT. 



41 



vading, all-sustaining Creator, and afterwards ad- 
vanced by easy gradations to the position of that 
Almighty Being, whose benignant power it had 
been selected to typify. 

It has been remarked, moreover, that it was not 
a benignant Deity alone whose influence was felt to 
pervade the earth. Mankind could not but be 
conscious that a great malignant principle was 
also exercising its power around and within them ; 
that evil, physical and moral, was carrying on an 
incessant struggle with that great and good Being 
to whose beneficence all Creation testified. 

In seeking for a visible symbol of this dread 
invisible reality, men would naturally be led by 
tradition to select the Serpent. That reptile having 
been the original ostensible agent in bringing evil 
into the world, it would, as a matter of course, be 
chosen as the representative of that mysterious 
Being, still felt to exercise so baneful a sway over 
the destinies of the successive generations of man- 
kind. Painfully recognizing the prevalence of evil 
in the world, smarting under its influence, and 
regarding the Serpent as its fitting type, what more 
easy in their downward progress than to instal 
the symbol in the place of the thing signified, and 
offer to it supreme worship in the hope of disarm- 
ing its malignity. Thus the good and evil prin- 
ciples came to be worshipped simultaneously under 
the form of the sun and the serpent, — the one, 
lovingly, to propitiate its favour, — the other, fear- 



42 



IDOLATRY IN EGYPT. 



[part L 



ingly, to avert its displeasure. So far, the progress 
of idolatry is sufficiently intelligible 8 . 

But a further and startling development in the 
system of Paganism soon presents itself to our 
notice; a development, of which it is more difficult 
to explain the theory than to prove the existence. 
We find the sun and serpent not only in opposition, 
but in combination, — existing, not only as the an- 
titheses of a system, but harmoniously and con- 
jointly ; and these antagonistic principles cemented 
in the symbol of the solar serpent. 

This symbol necessitates the conclusion that the 
opinions of mankind, or at all events of a large 
portion of them, with regard to this reptile, had 
undergone a radical change ; that the mighty in- 
fluences for evil which he had been instrumental 
in bringing on mankind, were forgotten or ignored ; 
that he had ceased to be remembered in his 
character of the great ostensible originator of evil, 
and was now regarded as in the closest affinity 
with the Fountain of Good. 

Such, then, is the aspect under which the serpent 
presents himself in the mythology of Egypt. On 
the shores of the Nile he had enshrined himself 
not as the /ca/coSat/iwi', but as the ayaOo^aipm'' not as 
the evil, but as the good deity. "Dr. Shuckford 
has shown that the Egyptians originally worshipped 
the Supreme God under the name of Cneph, affirm- 



8 Deane, pp. 33—36. 



CH. II.] 



IDOLATRY IN EGYPT. 



43 



ing him to be without beginning or end. Philo 
Biblius says that they represented him by the 
figure of a serpent, with the head of a hawk in the 
middle of a circle ; ... he represents them to have 
given to this being all the attributes of the Supreme 
God the Creator, incorruptible and eternal. Por- 
phyry calls him tov Sri/uuovpyov, the Maker or Creator 
of the universe 9 ." 

With these awful tenets his title of Cneph, when 
examined etymologically, will be found exactly to 
correspond 1 . Mr. Deane has so ably epitomized 
the statements of Bryant on this point, that I 
cannot do better than give his own words, " The 
name of the sacred serpent .... was in the ancient 
language of Canaan variously pronounced Aub, 
Ab; Oub, Ob; Oph, Op; Eph, Ev; all referrible 
to the original or 2$ V And with this name 
that given by the Egyptians to the serpent is found 
to correspond; a fact the cause of which is suffi- 
ciently obvious, when we consider that the originator 
of the worship in both countries was the same. 
Hence the term o^ig (Ophis), the Greeks abhorring 

9 G-. Higgins, Anac., vol. i. p. 46. 

1 " Notwithstanding the ridicule which has been thrown upon 
etymological inquiries, in consequence of the want of fixed 
rules, or of the absurd length to which some persons have 
carried them, yet, I am quite certain, it must, in a great 
measure, be from etymology at last that we must recover the 
lost learning of antiquity." Hid. vol. i. p. 44. 

2 Deane, p. 80. 



44 



IDOLATRY IN EGYPT. 



[PART I. 



an undeclinable noun. Hence too the probable 
origin of the Coptic term Hof. 

We learri from Bryant, moreover, that the word 
Cohen, which among the Egyptians and other 
Ammonians (or descendants of Ham) seems to 
have been pronounced Cahen and Chan, signi- 
fied a priest, also a lord or prince; in early times 
the offices of a prince and of a priest being compre- 
hended under one character. The term, he adds, 
was sometimes used with greater latitude, and de- 
noted any thing noble or divine. Hence we find it 
prefixed to the names both of deities and men. 
With this title he tells us the word Oph or Eph is 
often compounded, and expressed Canopus, Cano- 
phis, Canuphis, Cnuphis, C?ieph. We see then 
that Cneph is a contraction for Cahen Eph, i. e. 
the divine serpent. And in accordance with this 
was the teaching of Thoth, who is said to have 
introduced Ophiolatreia into Egypt, and who de- 
scribed his serpentine deity as "the divine spirit 
pervading all creation 3 ." 

To account for this anomalous position of the 
serpent in Heathen Mythology, Mr. Faber 4 pro- 
pounds the following theory. 

" The origin of the worship appears to me to be 
twofold, agreeably to the double character of evil 
and good which he has ever sustained. Under the 

3 Deane, p. 120. 

4 Origin of Pagan Idolatry, vol. i. p. 139. 



CH. II.] 



IDOLATRY IN EGYPT. 



45 



form of that reptile, the tempter seduced our first 
parents to sin and consequent misery ; yet the 
seraphim, who are evidently the same as the 
cherubim, are designated in the Hebrew, which 
was apparently the primeval language of the world, 
by a common name with the fiery flying serpent in 
the wilderness c With this supposed double origin 
the gentile use and application of the symbol per- 
fectly corresponds. The serpent was esteemed a 
type of evil and corruption . . . yet was the same 
animal also deemed a fit type of wisdom and good- 
ness, and as such it was made a hieroglyphic of 
deity." 

With due deference to the opinion of so esteemed 
a writer, I would submit that this theory of two in- 
dependent objects, whence the twofold worship was 
deduced, can scarcely be deemed satisfactory, in the 
face of what is known concerning the tenets of 
Ophite worship. We shall rather, if I mistake 
not, conclude that the object, whence the idolatry 
arose, was one, — the opinions, with regard to that 
one object, twofold. 

Speaking of the sentiments professed by the an- 
cient Egyptians relative to the serpent, Godfrey 
Higgins says 5 , " The same views were entertained 
hundreds of years after by the Ophitic heretics, 
who were a branch of the Egyptian Gnostics, and 
who venerated the serpent of Genesis, by whom 



5 Druids, p. 288. 



46 



IDOLATRY IN EGYPT. 



[PART I. 



they denied that sin was brought into the world, 
maintaining that it was a personification of a good 
principle which instructed Eve in all the learning 
of the world which has descended to us." 

" The Ophites," says Calmet, " took their name 
from Ophis, which in Greek signifies a serpent. 
These ancient heretics worshipped the serpent that 
betrayed Eve, and ascribed all sorts of knowledge 
to those creatures, of which they thought them to 
be masters and inventors (Epiphan. de Hseres. 
xxxvii. ; Iren. lib. i. cap. 34; Origen, lib. vi. contra 
Cels. ; Tertull. de Prsescrip. cap. 47) : in a word, 
they believed the serpent that tempted Eve was the 
Christ, which afterwards came down and was in- 
carnate in the person of Jesus. When their priests 
celebrated their mysteries, they attracted one of 
those creatures out of his hole, and after he had 
rolled himself on the things that were to be sacri- 
ficed, they said that Jesus Christ had sanctified 
them ; and then they gave them to the people to be 
worshipped r ." 

With these accounts before us of opinions enter- 
tained by persons professing Christianity, and de- 
scended moreover from the school of the Egyptian 
Gnostics, surely we need not refer to the Seraphim 
for the origin of the serpent's being regarded by 
the wisdom of Egypt as the symbol of the great 
" Architect of the Universe." Shall we not rather 

Calmet, Diet., voce Serpent. See also Mosheim, vol. i. 
p. 209. 



CH. II.] 



IDOLATRY IN EGYPT. 



47 



be led to the conclusion, that the twofold position 
of that reptile as an object of adoration did not 
arise in the one case from the serpent in Paradise, 
in the other from the seraphim, but from one and 
the same object — the form assumed by the tempter 
in Eden — whom they accounted the origin of bless- 
ing, maintaining that this blessing was evidenced 
in his being to them the author of good and evil ? 
From this one object two very different systems in- 
deed arose, — the Paradisiacal serpent being wor- 
shipped in the one case from fear, as the arch- 
enemy of the human race, — in the other from a ready 
mind, when by the wiles of Satan, the conflict be- 
tween truth and error resulted in the utter over- 
throw of the former, and the exaltation of the latter 
on the ruins of Truth's subverted altar. 

For some observations on the sacred narrative of 
the brazen serpent in the wilderness, I refer the 
reader to a subsequent chapter, and will only 
remark here that any attempt to derive from it the 
worship of the serpent as the ayaQoSaifjiwv must 
involve a glaring anachronism, inasmuch as that 
reptile was regarded in Egypt as the symbol of the 
great principle of beneficence, long before the chil- 
dren of Israel left that benighted land 1 . 

This worship of the serpent as the ayaQoSaifjiiDv is 
not supposed to have been indigenous to the banks 



7 Gliddon, p. 31. Deane, p. 150. 



48 



IDOLATRY IN EGYPT. 



[PART I. 



of the Nile. It is thought by Bryant to have 
originated in Chaldea, and to have been " the first 
variation from the purer Zabaism." " This inno- 
vation spread wonderfully, so that the chief deity 
of the Gentile world was almost universally wor- 
shipped under this symbolical representation." 
We are told that " Thoth, the reformer of the 
religion and manners of Egypt, and the supposed 
author of the hieroglyphic system," introduced both 
into Egypt and Phoenicia the worship of the ser- 
pent 8 . That it was brought to Egypt from a 
foreign country, appears from the fact, that the 
sacred serpent of Isis was the asp, which was 
not a reptile of Egyptian production. Ovid 
describes this goddess as accompanied by a pere- 
grina serpens, or foreign serpent; and all the 
representations of the asp describe it as having a 
large extended head, unlike any snake which has 
ever been found in Egypt. It was probably the 
hooded serpent of India, which is invariably the 
sacred snake of that country 9 ." 

" The motions of these animals are performed by 
two or three undulations of the posterior third of 
the body, whilst the two anterior thirds are held 
erect, giving to the animal a very majestic appear- 
ance." " When disturbed they spring upright, 
raising themselves almost on the very extremity of 



Deane, p. 120. 



9 Ibid. p. 124. 



CH. II.] 



IDOLATRY IN EGYPT. 



49 



the tail 1 ." This habit which the Hagi has of 
raising itself upright when approached, made the 
ancient Egyptians believe that it guarded the fields 
which it inhabited. They made it the emblem of 
the protecting deity of the world, and sculptured it 
on the portals of all their temples on the two sides 
of a globe. It is incontestably the serpent which 
the ancients have described under the aspic of 
Egypt, of Cleopatra, &c. " The jugglers of the 
country, by pressing its nape with the finger, know 
how to throw this serpent into a kind of catalepsy, 
which renders it stiff and immoveable, thus seeming 
to change it into a rod or stick 2 ." " Its prede- 
cessors were probably those chosen by the magicians 
of Pharaoh to be changed into rods in imitation of 
the divine miracle wrought by Moses 3 ." 

That the Cobra is the sacred serpent of antiquity, 
its very name would seem to indicate. A serpent 
was, as we have seen, in the Egyptian language, 
styled Ob or Aub 4 , and Mr. Faber, in his work on 
the Cabiri, giving this word in the list of his 
radicals, shows that it enters into the composition 
of the Spanish term Co6-ra. We will now exa- 
mine the other elements, not touched upon by 
him, which go to constitute the name, beginning 

1 Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, vol. xxii. p. 395. 

2 Cuvier's Animal Kingdom, vol. ix. E-eptilia. 

3 Bentley's Miscellany, Feb. 1853, p. 167. 
i See p. 43. 

E 



50 



IDOLATRY IN EGYPT. 



[PART I. 



with the initial letter. We have already seen the 
word Cahen, denoting the rule and superinten- 
dency of a priest, a king, or a deity, prefixed in an 
abbreviated form to the term Eph, thus constituting 
the god Cneph the protecting deity of the world. 
In a yet more contracted form it seems to enter 
into the composition of the name we are now con- 
sidering. Thus: Cahen — Ob — Cob-— the divine 
serpent; — Cneph, then, and Cob, have the same 
signification. We will now take the final syllable 
— Ra. Another radical given by Faber, is " Phree 
— Phri — Ph'ra — Pherah, the sun, Phe, or Ph', being 
the prefix or article to the noun Ra. 

If we now break up the word Cobra into its 
constituent parts, the result will be Cahen, Ob, Ra, 
COb-ra, the Divine sun serpent. Thus etymology 
supplies fresh grounds for the conclusion that the 
Cobra was the ancient sacred snake, which, as the 
Royal solar serpent, symbolized the union of Zabaism 
and Ophiolatria. 

To return, such was the worship introduced 
into Egypt by Thoth, the union of the solar disk 
with the sacred asp ; and this monstrous system of 
perversion, although not indigenous to the country, 
seems to have naturalized itself more peculiarly on 
Egyptian soil. 

It is supposed to have been most deeply rooted in 
Lower Egypt; and this opinion accords with the 
fact that to Phoenicia, as well as Egypt, Thoth 
imparted this new system of idolatry. For, coming 



CH. II.] 



IDOLATRY IN EGYPT. 



51 



from Phoenicia, the Delta would naturally be the 
theatre of his earlier labours. To this portion of 
the land was it probably in the first instance chiefly 
confined ; for while the asp became the symbol of 
Lower Egypt, the hawk, a species of eagle, (called 
by Forster 5 the Peregrine Falcon,) as sacred to, 
and typical of, the god Sun, remained the hiero- 
glyphic of the Upper country. In the course of time, 
however, the earlier worship of Ham the sun was 
merged in the later superstition; the symbol, and 
once incarnation of the arch-spirit of darkness, 
being enthroned in the orb of day, and hailed as the 
Creator of the world, the u incarnation of the Holy 
Spirit of God V 

The government of Egypt was hierarchic, the 
kings being priests of the national religion. Hence 
it is the less surprising that the sacred sun and 
serpent find a response, not only in the respective 
hieroglyphics of Upper and Lower Egypt, but in 
the title and badge of the Egyptian monarch. 

The generic title Pharaoh is generally supposed 
by Egyptologers to be derived from Phre or Phra, 
the god Sun ; being, as I have observed, Ea with 
the article prefixed. In the Pentateuch, this name 
of the kings of Egypt is in the original H}HD 
or Phrah, rendered Pharaoh in our version ; and 
Josephus tells us that the word meant king; and 
as the image of the sun on earth, an incarnation of 
solar dominion and benevolence, the king of Egypt 
5 Vol. ii. p. 57. 6 Glidclou, pp. 29—31. 

E 2 



52 



IDOLATRY IN EGYPT. 



[PART I. 



was symbolized in the sacred character by the solar 
orb. Each monarch, by law, inherited his father's 
throne in lineal succession ; so that the incumbent 
was Phra, son of Phra, literally Sun, son of the 
Sun, as in the East at the present day the Ottoman 
emperor is termed Sooltan ebn Sooltan, — Emperor, 
son of the Emperor 7 . 

But besides this generic title, every Pharaoh pos- 
sessed a peculiar badge as a symbol of the source 
whence he derived his power. 

Speaking of the asp, sacred to Cneph, Sir G. 
Wilkinson observes, that " this serpent was the 
type of dominion; for which reason it was affixed 
to the head of the Egyptian monarch, and a prince 
on his accession to the throne was entitled to wear 
this distinctive badge of royalty, which, before the 
death of his father, he was not authorized to adopt. 
The asp-formed crowns mentioned in the Rosetta 
Stone (adds he) were exclusively applied to the 
kings and queens of Egypt 8 ." While then the sun, 
the original object of worship among the Egyptians, 
formed the title of their monarch, the asp, when 
engrafted upon their earlier religious tenets, was 
adopted by them as the emblem of royalty. 

7 " The whole scheme of an oriental court, and eminently of 
the great king, was laid out on the idea that it was the visible 
representation of the court of heaven, and the king himself a 
visible incarnation of the highest God." — Trench's Hels. Lect., 
2nd Series, p. 50. 

8 Vol. i. p. 240. 



OH. II.] 



IDOLATRY IN EGYPT. 



53 



It is in this character that he is presented to us 
under the title of the Basilisc (IWcAkt/coc, from 
IWiXcuc, a king), the same as the cockatrice, — a 
fabulous monster, said to be produced from a cock's 
egg brooded by a serpent. This view renders the 
myth easy of solution. The cock was the bird of 
the sun, noted as the herald of the orb of day. An 
egg, generated by the one and developed by the 
other, could, it is evident, burst upon the asto- 
nished world but in one form, that of the solar 
serpent 9 . 

To those who entertain doubts of the identity 
of the Royal Asp of Egypt, the Basilisc and the 
Cockatrice with the Cobra, the opinion of an au- 
thor, eminently sceptical in his way, may be satis- 
factory. " After a most careful comparison of the 
large specimen of the Cobra Capello in the museum 
of the Royal College of Surgeons," says Godfrey 
Higgins, " with the monuments in the British 
Museum, I am quite satisfied that the serpent, or 
protuberance on the foreheads of the Memnon, and 
of many other figures, are Cobras , ." 

But further. Not only did the Basilisc rear his 
crest upon the brow of the Egyptian monarch, the 

9 But that the office of the mundane egg in heathen mytho • 
logy seems so fully ascertained, we might really be almost 
tempted to inquire whether it were not designed to symbolize 
the heir presumptive of the Egyptian throne ! I ! — See the plate 
in Bryant, vol. iii. p. 62. 

1 Anac. vol. i. p. 524. 



54 IDOLATRY IN EGYPT. [PART I. 



badge of his sole prerogative, and symbol of the 
source of his dominion, but we are informed by 
Mr. Forster 2 that the motto of the Pharaohs was 
" Sill kum," "Basiliscus erectus stetit (the Basilisc 
stands erect)/' 

In the same volume 3 we find the following ob- 
servation from a manuscript journal of Captain 
Fraser : — " It is evident that primeval tradition 
had handed down the true worship to the precincts 
of Isis, . . . and that it was corrupted and lost, 
when, finding out many traditions, they first per- 
sonified, and then deified, the attributes of the 
Deity." 

This statement appears to me to fall far short 
of the truth. At the period of which we are treat- 
ing Egyptian idolatry was more than a mere cor- 
ruption or perversion, and subsequent loss of ori- 
ginal truth. It was an impious denial of it. Satan 
had not only beguiled his votaries to personifica- 
tions and deifications of the divine attributes, till 
the Deity Himself was lost sight of in the de- 
grading process, — Satan had done more than this. 
He had insinuated himself into the place of the 
Deity; had obliterated the knowledge of Jehovah 
from the hearts of his worshippers (supposing them 
to have derived that knowledge from their great 
ancestor, and to have retained it until Thoth had 
effected his vast religious revolution), and in the 



2 One Primeval Language, p. 143. 



3 Ibid. p. 181. 



CH. II.] 



IDOLATRY IN EGYPT. 



55 



place of a forgotten Deity had substituted himself. 
In Egypt, God's power had ceased to be acknow- 
ledged, or even known; and the avowed object of 
religious worship, the recognised source of sove- 
reign dominion, was the once incarnation of the 
arch-spirit of evil — the serpent of Paradise. 

The kings of Egypt could be chosen but from 
one of two castes — the priesthood or the soldiery; 
and if selected from the latter, the admission of the 
elected person to the priesthood, and his initiation 
into the mysteries of Isis, was a necessary prelimi- 
nary to his assumption of the crown; and, as Pha- 
raoh, his motto was " Sill kum," " the Basilisc 
stands erect." The word of God, and the tenets 
of this priestly king, could not have been more 
glaringly antagonistic. " The Lord God said unto 
the serpent, Upon thy belli/ shalt thou go, and dust 
shalt thou eat all the days of thy life." The motto 
of the Pharaohs was " The Basilisc stands erect ;" 
his badge, the Basilisc erect upon his brow. This 
blasphemous dogma gave a direct lie to the history 
of the fall of man, and the diabolic agency by which 
it had been effected. It was the re-erection of the 
serpent in bold defiance of the decree of the Al- 
mighty, and through the elevation of this his osten- 
sible agent, a reinstatement of the prince of dark- 
ness in the position which he had occupied before 
he was cast down from heaven; nay, more, it was 
his exaltation to the throne and attributes of the 
most High. 



56 



IDOLATRY IN EGYPT. [PART I. 



And this motto may serve to throw fresh light 
upon the selection of the cobra from the whole 
race of serpents as the fitting object of Egyptian 
idolatry The peculiar habit of the cobra consisted, 
as we have seen, in raising itself upright when ap- 
proached, and moving with the greater part of its 
body erect ; and with this peculiarity the choice of 
the Egyptians is said to have been connected. 
The motive which prompted that choice lies deep 
in the abyss of their religious system. The cobra 

4 " We have of course no power," observes Mr. Melvill, " of 
ascertaining the external change which the curse wrought 
upon the serpent. The terms, however, of the sentence, 
' Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the 
days of thy life,' seem to imply that the serpent had not been 
created a reptile, but became classed with creeping things as a 
consequent upon the curse." — Sermons. 

In confirmation of this remark, it may be observed that the 
anatomical structure of the serpent appears to be such as to 
induce the supposition that this degraded reptile was originally 
created with feet. " Professor Mayer has traced obscure rudi- 
ments of pelvic bones in the Anguis fragilis, the Auguis ven- 
tralis and the Typhops crocotatus, aud is of opinion that they 
might exist much more generally in this order of reptiles than 
has been commonly imagined. Some serpents as the Boa, 
Python, Tortryx and Eryx have claws, which may be considered 
rudiments of feet, visible externally. In others, as the Anguis, 
Typhlops and AmphisbsDna, they exist concealed under the 
skin. In others he has discovered cartilaginous filaments, 
which he conceives to correspond to those parts." — Roget's 
Bridgwater Treatise, vol. i. p. 447. See also Kirby's Bridg- 
water Treatise, vol. ii. p. 428. 



CJ?. II.] 



IDOLATRY IN EGYPT. 



57 



was the nearest natural approximation to the para- 
disiacal serpent antecedent to the Fall of man — its 
habitual position that most opposed to the man- 
date of the Almighty. 

On examining the Obelisk of Osortasen, the 1st 
of the 16th Diospolitan Dynasty, as delineated by 
Mr. Gliddon (Ancient Egypt, p. 19), it will be 
observed how remarkably this peculiarity of the 
cobra is sculptured on the granite. Side by side 
with the royal hawk or vulture, and with the head 
of either at an equal altitude, it might at first 
sight be mistaken for the figure of a bird — so 
completely had it been elevated by its votaries 
from the position of ignominy awarded to it by 
the primeval curse. 




And this awful phase of Ophiolatria in Egypt 
was no passing conceit, no phantasy of the imagin- 
ation which tarried but for a day. On the con- 
trary, it would seem to have grown with her 
growth, and strengthened with her strength. In 
casting our eye over the monarchs of the 18th 
Dynasty (the whole list, observes Bryant, being 
made up of divine titles), we shall be struck by 
the circumstance that so many of them assumed 



58 



IDOLATRY IN EGYPT. [PART I. 



the appellation of Amenophis, that is, according 
to the etymology followed in the preceding pages, 
the Hamitic solar serpent. The eighteenth then 
being the Golden Dynasty of Egypt, this terrible 
idolatrous system appears to have culminated at 
the very period when the renown of the Egyp- 
tian empire had reached its zenith, — her kings 
then more especially avouching themselves succes- 
sive incarnations of the royal solar serpent, and 
appropriating to themselves a title analogous to 
that blasphemous motto which repudiated the fiat 
of Omnipotence, and met with an impious denial 
the inspired history of the Fall. 

The learned Birch's rendering of the word Amon, 
differing somewhat from that advanced in these 
pages, manifests yet more forcibly the antagonism 
which existed between the teaching of Egypt and 
the Word of God. Speaking of Amoun Ea, he says, 
" His name has been variously written. Manetho 
in composition gives Amen as in Amenophis. The 
true Egyptian name seems to be the Coptic 
Amoun, glory or exaltation 5 ." According to this 
rendering, the title of the monarch signified the 
exaltation of the serpent, and answered yet more 
directly to the motto of his country, " The serpent 
stands erect." Thus the royal badge, the motto, 
and the title, concur, as it were in a threefold 
manner, in bringing out the blasphemous theory of 
the Egyptian kingdom. 

5 Birch's Gallery. 



CH. II.] 



IDOLATRY IN EGYPT. 



59 



Such is the aspect under which I would view 
the worship of the serpent as the Agathodsemon of 
Egyptian idolatry. It recals to mind the words 
put by Milton into the mouth of Satan, "Evil be 
thou my good." In Egypt the enmity between the 
seed of the woman and that of the serpent had 
been ignored; her monarchs had learned to glory 
in their shame; the entire structure of the empire 
gave back its deep response to that terrific boast of 
the prince of apostate angels, " I will ascend into 
heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of 
God : I will ascend above the heights of the clouds ; 
I will be like the most High 6 ." 

With the following remarks I will bring this 
chapter to a close. 

We have seen reason for the supposition that the 
origin of idolatry was coeval with the Fall of man, 
the object of that idolatry being Satan in serpent 
form — also that the worship at the eastern gate of 
Eden was the divinely-appointed antidote to coun- 
teract the deadly effects of that fearful apostasy, 
supplying as it did a material symbol of the pre- 
sence of Deity, opposed to that " old serpent which 
is called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the 
whole world." We have seen reason also for con- 
cluding that the eastern gate of Eden and the 
Mosaic tabernacle were institutions of a kindred 
character, both being hallowed by the symbol of 



Isa. xiv. 13, 14. 



CO 



IDOLATRY IN EGYPT. 



[PART I. 



the Divine presence, and the appointed spots at 
which the worshippers were commanded to pre- 
sent their offerings. 

The point at which we have arrived with re- 
spect to Egyptian idolatry enables us in some 
degree to appreciate the peculiar propriety of 
setting up the tabernacle in the wilderness im- 
mediately after the Exode. The religious theory 
of Egypt, ignoring as we have seen the history 
of the Fall, had elevated the serpent from the 
degraded position assigned him by the Almighty, 
and enshrined him as the all-wise and all-boun- 
tiful creator and preserver of the universe. And 
with this false, delusive theory the minds of the 
Israelites had been deeply imbued. Immediately 
therefore upon the signal overthrow at the Red 
Sea of the votaries of this abominable idolatry, 
the Almighty re-established a mode of worship, 
more elaborate indeed in detail, yet essentially the 
same as when He placed the Shechinah and che- 
rubim in a tabernacle at the eastern gate of Eden. 
How calculated such a proceeding to correct the 
insane hypothesis of the Israelites, to recal to their 
memory the true nature of the part enacted by 
Satan in the fall of our first parents, and to esta- 
blish the Divine worship on a basis similar to that 
instituted at the period when the victims of his 
subtlety were expelled from Paradise. 



CH. III.] 



EGYPTIAN TRIAD. 



61 



CHAPTER III. 

EGYPTIAN TRIAD. 

It is a singular fact, that a doctrine, more or less 
analogous to that of the Christian Trinity, consti- 
tuted an important feature in the belief of the most 
ancient nations of the earth. On this, I believe, 
all writers upon pagan idolatry are agreed, and the 
only question which has arisen amongst them is, 
Whence had this peculiar tenet its origin ? Was 
it a remnant of primitive tradition, or a pure inven- 
tion of heathenism ? Mr. Maurice, in his " Indian 
Antiquities'," remarks, "This notion of three 
persons in the Deity was diffused among all the 
nations of the earth, established at once in regions 
so distant as Japan and Peru, immemorially 
acknowledged throughout the whole extent of 
Egypt and India, and flourishing with equal vigour 
among the snowy mountains of Thibet, and the 
vast deserts of Siberia." 



Page 115. 



62 



EGYPTIAN TRIAD. 



[PART I. 



One of the most remarkable of these triadic 
systems is shadowed forth in that well-known mystic 
emblem, sculptured over so many of the Egyptian 
temples, the Globe, the Serpent, and the Wings. 

"It is certain," says Mr. Deane 2 , " that the 
tripartite emblem of the serpent, wings, and 
circle, was a hieroglyphic of Deity. The Egyptian 
priests of a later and more metaphysical age, 
understanding this to be the signification of the 
hierogram, addressed themselves to the task of 
discovering the mystery. A most ingenious theory 
was accordingly devised by Hermes Trismegistus, 
who was probably the high priest of the god Thoth, 
or 4 Thrice-great Hermes,' whose name he assumed 
in compliance with the universal custom of the 
religion. . . . According to this theory, the Globe 
typified the simple essence oe God, which he 
indifferently called the Father, the first mind, 
the supreme wisdom. The Serpent emerging 
from the Globe was the vivifying power of God, 
which called all things into existence. This he 
named the word. The Wings implied the moving 
or penetrative power of God, which pervaded all 
things. This he called love. The whole emblem 
was interpreted to represent the Supreme Being in 
his character of Creator and Preserver. 

" The definition of the Deity by Trismegistus is 

2 Worship of the Serpent, p. 55. 



CH. III.] 



EGYPTIAN TRIAD. 



63 



poetically sublime, c God is a circle whose centre 

is EVERY WHERE, and CIRCUMFERENCE NO WHERE.' 

" The above description of the Ophite hierogram, 
as may well be imagined, has persuaded many an 
ardent friend of Revelation to recognise in this 
symbol of the hieroglyphical learning of Egypt, the 
mystery of the Holy Trinity. 

" Kircher, Cudworth, and Maurice, have all em- 
braced this opinion; but the more cautious Faber, 
with the arguments of all before him, has come to 
the conclusion that the doctrine of the Trinity, in 
its Christian sense, was unknown to the Pagan." 

Those who coincide in the views advanced in the 
preceding chapter, while they may be disposed to 
admit the probability of the pagan system of Triads 
having originated in a primitive belief in the 
Triune God, will not be disinclined to entertain 
the question as to what extent Satan may have 
been instrumental in the establishment of this pri- 
mitive belief as symbolized in the combination of 
the sun, the serpent, and the wings. Satan, be it 
remembered, was fully cognizant of the great verity 
of the Triune God. Ere he was cast out of heaven 
he had stood in the dread presence of the Deity, and 
joined in the eternal song of praise around the 
Creator's throne. The daring imitator in after- 
ages of his Divine Master, what so probable as that 
he should exert the power he was permitted to 
exercise over the hearts and minds of men in or- 
ganizing a Trinity of his own, antithetic of that 



64 



EGYPTIAN TRIAD. 



[PART I. 



wherein consisted the essence of the great Jehovah, 
meeting the desire of all nations for the full revela- 
tion of the Godhead, with a cunningly-devised 
fable, which should preoccupy the place of truth, 
substituting apples of Sodom for the fruit of the 
tree of life. Hence, the worship of the sun as the 
great father of Heaven and earth; of Cneph, as 
the original eternal spirit pervading all creation; 
of the serpent, as the incarnation of Cneph, through 
whom were imparted to our first parents the, so 
called, gifts of wisdom and knowledge. 

How diametrically opposed all this to sacred 
truth ! In Holy Scripture the Son is spoken of as 
He " by whom God made the worlds." " All things 
were made by him, and without him was not any 
thing made that was made." In Egypt these 
offices of the Son were attributed to the demiurge, 
the Paradisiacal serpent ; and whereas we are taught 
that at creation "the Spirit of God" (the third 
person in the blessed Trinity) "moved upon the 
face of the waters 3 ," we find the wings entering into 
this heathen symbol of the Triad, ascribing to 
Cneph that vital energy on account of which we 

3 " The word we here translate moved, signifies literally, 
brooded upon the waters, as a hen doth upon her eggs." — Bp. 
Patrick. 

"The word seems used to express that act of the Holy 
Spirit, by which He imparted motion, activity, and life to the 
particles of matter lying yet in a mixed and shapeless heap." 
-Dr. Wells. 



CH. III.] 



EGYPTIAN TRIAD. 



65 



entitle the Holy Spirit "the Lord and giver of 
life." Thus by the wiles of Satan did the doctrine 
of a Diabolic Triad precede the development of 
the Trinity of the Godhead, the depths of Satan 
anticipate the full and perfect revelation of the 
depths of the knowledge of God. 

Such, I cannot but think, is the true aspect 
under which to view the Egyptian Triad of the 
globe, the serpent, and the wings, — to regard it as 
a symbol of a primitive belief, perverted by the 
implacable enemy of the human race, and moulded 
by him into a form in direct opposition to those 
immutable elements of Truth whence it originally 
sprang. 

This diabolic system was probably more fully 
expanded in after days ; but on this abstruse point 
I shall content myself with quoting a passage from 
Wilkinson. "Kneph, or more properly Neph or 
Nef, was retained as the idea of the Spirit of God 
which moved upon the face of the waters. But 
having separated the Spirit from the Creator of the 
universe, and purposing to set apart and deify 
each attribute which presented itself to their 
imagination, they found it necessary to form another 
Deity from the creative power, whom they called 
Pthah, equal to Neph, being another character of 
the same God 4 ." 

"Pthah, or in the Memphitic dialect Phthah, 



4 Second Series, vol. i. p. 237. 



66 



EGYPTIAN TEIAD. 



[PART I. 



was the Demiurge, or the creative power of the 
Deity; the artisan, as Iamblicus calls him, of the 
heavenly gods." " He is called in the sculptures of 
Thebes, the Lord of Truth." " The Greeks deno- 
minate him Hephsestos." " He is frequently styled 
Sokari, Osiris without the prefix Pthah, and it ap- 
pears that he is then more pre-eminently connected 
with the passage of Osiris from this life to another 
state, and his mysterious return from his human to 
his divine nature V 

So artfully was this lying system substituted for 
the truth, and so close the imitation, that even 
at the present day learned men are found to enter- 
tain the opinion that the mythology of the Egyptian 
priesthood was but the shadow of which truth was 
the substance. Thus, Mr. Gliddon presents us, in 
his learned work on Ancient Egypt, with a picture 
of the god Amun Kneph turning a potter's wheel, 
moulding the mortal part of Osiris the Father of 
men out of a lump of clay. The clay is placed on 
a potter's-wheel, which he turns with his foot, while 
he fashions it with his hands. It is a subject from 
the mystic chamber of Philae, 1st Cataract. Of 
the hieroglyphic which surmounts this design Mr. 
Gliddon supplies the following translation, u Knum, 
the Creator, on his wheel moulds the divine members 
of Osiris (the type of man) in the shining house of 
life," that is "in the solar disk;" and he adds by 



5 Ibid. pp. 249—256. 



CH. III.] 



EGYPTIAN TRIAD. 



67 



way of comment, " Amun-Kneph, or Neph, Kneph, 
Cnouphis, Noub, represents the creative power of 
Amun," that is, " the Spirit of God"— the breath 
of life poured into our nostrils. He moulds man, 
in Hebrew, "Adam, the first man," meaning both 
"man," and "red clay or earth." Now consult Isaiah 
lxiv. 8, "But now, O Lord, thou art our Father; 
we are the clay (in Hebrew, Adme, red earth), and 
thou our potter; and we are all the work of thy 
hand." 

To me this picture, with its accompanying hiero- 
glyphic, appears one of the most fearful perversions 
of primitive truth which it is possible to contem- 
plate. For whereas the prophet ascribes the 
creation of man to Jehovah, this inscription attri- 
butes it to Cneph, the princely serpent : i. e. to 
Satan. But Mr. Gliddon considers the Holy Spirit 
of God and Cneph identical. " The asp," says 
he 6 , " was typical of, and sacred to, the god Neph, 
which deity was an incarnation of the Spirit of 
God." A striking exemplification this of the old 
adage : " Diabolus simia Dei." 

The same author furnishes the translation of 
another hieroglyphic which runs thus : " May thy 
soul attain to Khnum the Creator of all mankind." 
" This alone," he remarks, " is a proof of the primi- 
tive Egyptian creed of one God the Creator (whose 
divine attributes were classed in triads), of man's 

Page 31. 

r 2 



G8 



EGYPTIAN TRIAD. 



[PART L 



possession of a soul, and of its immortality; of a 
resurrection, and of the hope of such." "Let it 
stand, for the present, as an insight into the pristine 
purity of Egyptian belief, in ages prior to Abra- 
ham's visit; and let the constant expression of 
"beloved of a God," "loving the gods," like the 
Hebrew " dilectus a Domine suo, Samuel " (in the 
Vulgate), "beloved of his Lord Samuel;" attest the 
primeval piety of the Nilotic family over all con- 
temporary nations, whom," adds he sarcastically, 
"we are pleased to condemn as Pagans. 11 The 
hieroglyph indeed shows that the Egyptians died in 
the hope of a resurrection from the dead, but as 
Satan stood to them in the place of God, it is 
melancholy to reflect that unwittingly they prayed 
for " the resurrection to damnation 11 Certainly this 
does look very Paganic, and we are glad to recall 
the words of St. Paul, " the times of this ignorance 
God winked at." 

Before quitting this subject I would advert to a 
passage in Mr. Forster's c One Primeval Language,' 
where he remarks 7 , " The Pschent, which has been 
thought to be a royal robe, a crown, and the regal 
head-dress or helm, used in solemn ceremonial by 
the kings of Egypt, proves to be neither head- 
dress nor crown, but a royal ornament, the ensign 
of plenty in the shape of an oval shining grain of 
millet, with its stamina and antherse developed." 



7 Vol. ii. p. 54. 



CH. III.] 



EGYPTIAN TRIAD. 



69 



And he proceeds to observe, " The appropriateness 
of the millet seed as an ensign of Egyptian royalty 
will at once be perceived, when it is recalled to 
mind, that the prosperity of Egypt in all ages has 
turned on her fruitful harvests ; and that millet has 
been always her standard crop." " The appropriate- 
ness of the Pschent was rivalled by its graceful- 
ness and beauty; this ensign of the Pharaohs and 
Ptolemies being composed, apparently, of a single 
pearl, or diamond, of oval form, and of the first 
magnitude and water, with three gold filaments 
depending from it, representing the stamina; each 
filament again being threaded with five jewels or 
brilliants, representing the antherse of the grain of 
millet. Such an ornament in the middle or on 
the summit of the crown, or on that of the golden 
i>aoe, well merited and justified its enchorial appella- 
tion of the shining jewel or pearl, or its hierogly- 
phic designation of the ruby millet." 

Although not sufficiently learned to raise a 
question as to what the Pschent really was, I 
venture to suggest a doubt with respect to the 
idea it was intended to convey. Certainly corn 
was not always employed by the Egyptians as an 
ensign of royalty, for it was placed about the per- 
sons of the dead. And to a people so conversant 
with the language of symbols, so careful in the 
selection of them, it could, I apprehend, be bound 
up with the feet of the dead with but one view, to 
symbolize the resurrection of the dead. So pecu- 



70 



EGYPTIAN TRIAD. 



[PART I. 



Harry appropriate was the symbol to this subject, 
that St. Paul, in that celebrated chapter in his 
Epistle to the Corinthians in which he treats of 
the resurrection, says, as though the analogy were 
self-evident, " Thou fool, that which thou sowest is 
not quickened, except it die : and that which thou 
sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but 
bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some 
other grain: but God giveth it a body as it hath 
pleased him, and to every seed his own body." If 
then we accept Mr. Forster's definition of the 
Pschent, it remains to be considered whether he 
is right in interpreting it as a natural rather than 
a mystic emblem. Was it not symbolical of a belief 
in immortality rather than of Egyptian plenty ? 
and when worn with the accompanying asp, at once 
the badge of Egyptian royalty, and of Cneph the 
prince of evil, can we fail to connect it with the 
hieroglyphic we have been considering : " May thy 
soul attain to Kneph, or Khnum, the Creator of all 
mankind V Like the ark, it was a symbol common 
to Christians and to the idolatrous Egyptians, indi- 
cating the resurrection to life or the resurrection 
to damnation, as did the ark the synagogue of 
Satan or the Church of Christ. 

Mr. Gliddon, however, is by no means singular 
in regarding the mythology of the Egyptians as a 
superstructure raised upon the elementary founda- 
tions of truth, an esoteric system veiling, not the 
inventions of Satan, but, the verities of the God- 



CH. III.] 



EGYPTIAN TRIAD. 



71 



head. A writer of deep erudition, who states that 
he has devoted ten hours per diem for twenty years 
to the study of Egyptian mythology, and who, in 
his " attempt to draw aside the veil of the Saitic 
Isis," has suffered that of infidelity to enshroud 
him in its murky folds, has unhappily arrived at 
this fearful conclusion. He speaks of a Pagan 
Trinity, the Creator, the Preserver, the Destroyer, 
and identifies it with the Christian Trinity, attri- 
buting the works of the Holy Spirit, the life-giver, 
under a different phase to Beelzebub, the destroyer. 
" The third person was the destroyer, or in his 
good capacity the regenerator" " We read of an 
evil spirit, and of a Holy Spirit; one is the third 
person in his destroying, the other in his rege- 
nerating capacity 8 ." So cunningly, so entirely, so 
fearfully had Satan counterfeited the great Jehovah 
in the heathen system of mythology ! 

The view I am taking will probably be pro- 
nounced extreme. Be it so. Yet after the careful 
study of various works on ancient Egypt, I can 
draw from them but one conclusion : that Egypt, at 
the time of Joseph's entry therein, and yet more 
especially at the period of the Exode, was (as I 
shall attempt to show hereafter) the great power of 
Satan usurping the prerogative of God, — the most 
w T onderful development recorded in the world's his- 
tory of the intellect, the learning, the wisdom, and 



8 Anacalypsis. See further, especially p. 114. 



72 



EGYPTIAN TRIAD. 



[PART I. 



the arts of a nation whose power was the arch 
spirit of evil. This conviction was not suddenly 
attained. I sought it not from, but was driven 
to it by the force of, the premises. Although not 
directly connected with the immediate object I 
have in view, it throws fresh light upon it, and 
imparts to it a more intense fascination. It invests 
the mission of Moses with a more thrilling interest, 
by revealing to us the fearful nature of the power 
with which he had to contend. For now we behold 
him going forth, as the prophet of Jehovah, to 
combat with and triumph over the avowed repre- 
sentative of the Evil One, — fit type of the final 
struggle between Christ and Antichrist ! 



CH. IV.] MANETHO AND THE MONUMENTS. 



73 



CHAPTER IV. 

MANETHO AND THE MONUMENTS. 

Having glanced at the probable state of religion in 
ancient Egypt, let us now endeavour to ascertain 
whether such were the aspect, under which it pre- 
sented itself, at the time Joseph was carried down 
thither by the Ishmaelites. 

Few men but those deeply versed in the subject 
would willingly undertake to touch on the vexed 
question either of Scriptural or of Egyptian chrono- 
logy. Of those few I am not one. The question 
is embarrassing on many accounts. At the very 
outset we are met by two difficulties. On the 
arrangement of Scriptural chronology learned men 
are divided, while on that of Egypt it is not per- 
haps too much to affirm, that the very first elements 
have scarcely been adjusted. Between two fluctuat- 
ing systems it is very difficult to establish a point of 
contact ; yet, while with regard to Scriptural chro- 
nology, it is well known that the Hebrew and the 
Samaritan texts, and that of the Septuagint, each 
presents us with a different series of numbers, the 



74 



MANETHO AND 



[PART I. 



immense periods of time assigned to the earlier 
Egyptian dynasties, unless shorn of their gigantic 
proportions, refuse to fall into harmony with any 
one of the systems sanctioned by the advocates of 
either of the three Biblical theories. 

Under these circumstances we must endeavour 
by another method to fix the point of contact, and 
ascertain the state of Egypt at the time of Joseph's 
sojourn there, less by numbers than by names. But 
this can be accomplished, so far as I am aware, 
only by an indirect process ; yet even so, we must 
refer to one point of Scriptural chronology, and 
that on the following account. The term Pharaoh, 
as is well known, is not the name of an individual, 
but a royal title pertaining to the Egyptian kings ; 
it was used much as we employ the generic word 
Sultan or Czar, King or Emperor, — the proper 
name being superadded to indicate the particular 
monarch intended to be designated. The Mosaic 
writings do not furnish us with the proper name of 
the Pharaoh to whom Joseph interpreted his dreams. 
He is not specified in the Jewish records as are 
some others ; for instance, Pharaoh-iVecAo, Pha- 
Yaoh- Hop lira ; nor do the extant histories of 
Egypt, at any rate designedly, supply the omission. 
Neither does the inspired lawgiver mention the 
name of the Pharaoh who perished in the Red Sea. 
But here the chronicles of Egypt fill up the defi- 
ciency. They do furnish us with the name of the 
monarch of the Exode, albeit in accounts in which 



CH. IV.] 



THE MONUMENTS. 



75 



the circumstances are most grossly travestied; yet, 
however perverted the narrative, the name given, 
as I shall presently endeavour to show, is not 
lightly to be rejected. They supply, moreover, not 
only the name of that monarch, but also a list of 
his ancestors, with the duration of their several 
reigns for many generations. If, then, we can de- 
termine the length of time which elapsed between 
the descent of Joseph into Egypt and the departure 
of the Israelites, and then dating from the close of 
the reign of that king who was overwhelmed in 
the Red Sea while pursuing after them, subtract an 
equal number of years from the period of the united 
reigns of himself and his predecessors, we shall 
arrive at the name of the Pharaoh before whom 
Joseph stood. 

In order to ascertain the period of the sojourn of 
Israel in Egypt, the following points require consi- 
deration. In the twelfth chapter of Exodus Moses 
says, " Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, 
who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty 
years. And it came to pass at the end of the four 
hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day, it 
came to pass that all the hosts of the Lord went 
out from the land of Egypt." With this statement, 
however, there are certain passages in Scripture 
which seem at first sight to be at variance. When 
God promised Abraham a son, He said "Know of 



1 Gen. xv. 13. 



76 



MANETHO AND 



[PART I. 



a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land 
that is not their's, and shall serve them; and they 
shall afflict them four hundred years." So Acts 
vii. 6, " God spake on this wise, That his seed 
should sojourn in a strange land; and that they 
should bring them into bondage, and entreat them 
evil four hundred years." And St. Paul, speaking 
to the Galatians of the promise made to Abraham, 
says 2 , " The covenant, that was confirmed before of 
God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred 
and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it 
should make the promise of none effect." 

First, Moses and St. Paul both speak of four 
hundred and thirty years. But while the former 
may be thought by that number to mark 3 the dura- 
tion of the sojourn in Egypt, the latter clearly 
points to it, as comprising the whole period from 
the time that Abraham came into the land of 
Canaan, when the sojourn strictly began, to that 
of the Exode. And indeed the words of Moses do 
not necessarily imply more ; for he says, not that 
the sojourning of the children of Israel in Egypt 
was four hundred and thirty years, but " the 
sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in 
Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years," — the 
period in its integrity, referring, not to the dura- 
tion of the residence in Egypt, but to that of the 
pre-ordained pilgrimage. 



2 Gal. iii. 17. 



CH. IV.] 



THE MONUMENTS. 



77 



A reference to the words of St. Stephen will 
confirm the correctness of the foregoing exposition. 
Between those portions of the verse which speak 
of the sojourn of Israel and its duration, St. Stephen 
interposes not only the indwelling in Egypt, but the 
bondage ivith which it terminated. That the latter, 
however, cannot be intended by him to synchronise 
with the four hundred and thirty years, is evident 
not only from what is known of the duration of the 
residence as compared with that of the slavery, but 
from the after-statement of the protomartyr him- 
self, which declares (verses 17 — 19) that the subtil 
dealing with, and evil treatment of, his fathers in 
Egypt, commenced only when the time of the pro- 
mise of their redemption drew nigh. Thus allow- 
ing inspiration to be its own interpreter, the state- 
ment of St. Stephen demonstrates that Moses, like 
St. Paul, includes in the period under consideration 
the peregrination of the Israelites prior to the de- 
scent into Egypt, as well as their residence in the 
land of Ham. We may therefore take the passage 
of Exodus as it stands in the Samaritan Pentateuch, 
if not as the true reading, yet at any rate as a 
faithful commentary on the passage. It runs thus : 
— " Now the sojourning of the children of Israel 
and of their fathers, which they sojourned in the 
land of Canaan and in the land of Egypt, was four 
hundred and thirty years." And with this reading 
that of the Septuagint nearly coincides : — " The 



78 



MANETHO AND 



[PART I. 



sojourning of the children of Israel, which they 
sojourned in the land of Egypt and in the land 
of Canaan, was four hundred and thirty years. 

The words of Josephus also, it should be added, 
are here in accordance with the Samaritan and 
Septuagmt versions. " They (the Israelites) left 
Egypt in the month Xanthicus, on the fifteenth 
day of the lunar month, four hundred and thirty 
years after our forefather Abraham came into 
Canaan, but two hundred and fifteen years only 
after Jacob removed into Egypt 3 ." 

If we reckon up the intermediate periods be- 
tween the entrance of Abraham into Canaan and 
the departure of the Israelites from Egypt under 
Moses, the four hundred and thirty years will stand 
thus :— ■ 

TEARS 

From Abraham's arrival in Canaan to the birth of Isaac 25 

Erom the birth of Isaac to that of Jacob 60 

From the birth of Jacob to his descent into Egypt . . 130 
Erom the descent into Egypt to the Exode 215 

430 

But secondly, it will be objected that the period 
foretold in the promise to Abraham falls short of 
that given by Moses and St. Paul by thirty years. 
How is this ? Mr. Nolan's 4 explanation of this 
apparent discrepancy is very striking. It may be 

3 Book ii. c. 15. 2. 4 Second Warburtonian Lecture. 



CH. IV.] 



THE MONUMENTS. 



79 



thus epitomized. God, when addressing Abraham 
in the passage before us, is speaking not of Abra- 
ham himself, but of his seed. " Thy seed shall be 
a stranger in the land that is not their's . . . . 
four hundred years." Moses, in the Book of Exodus, 
and St. Paul after him, speak of the whole sojourn 
of Israel, including Abraham himself (for he was 
as much a sojourner as his descendants), as extend- 
ing to a period of four hundred and thirty years. 
In Genesis Moses speaks in express terms of the 
sojourn of the seed of Abraham, and specifies the 
duration of their pilgrimage as four hundred 
years. 

Yet if we refer to the numbers given above we 
shall find that from the birth of Isaac to the 
Exode was four hundred and five years. To meet 
this difficulty, Mr. Nolan shows that it was the 
custom of the Hebrews to wean their children in 
the fifth year (Hier. Trad, in Gen.), at the con- 
clusion of which they passed "from infancy to 
childhood." And he concludes that the revela- 
tion which limited the promise to Isaac was made 
by God to Abraham on the day kept to celebrate 
the weaning of the child, from which festival to 
the Exode a period would elapse of exactly four 
hundred years 5 . 

The sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt lasted 
two hundred and fifteen years. Joseph had pre- 

s Sect. ii. 29, and note, 350 ; see the whole note. 



80 



MANETHO AND 



[PART I. 



viously dwelt there twenty-three years ; fourteen 
in a state of captivity, and nine after his elevation 
by Pharaoh. 

TEARS 

Joseph in slavery 14 

Between the interpretation of Pharaoh's dream and 

the descent of Jacob into Egypt 9 

Sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt 215 

238 

If, then, we take the last year of the reign of the 
monarch said to have perished in the Red Sea, 
and deduct two hundred and thirty-eight years from 
the antecedent dates of his reign and those of his 
predecessors, we shall arrive at the name of the 
Pharaoh who occupied the throne when Joseph 
descended into Egypt. 

But as we must now turn from the inspired 
oracles to records of a very different character, and 
from which conclusions the most conflicting have 
been drawn, it will be advisable as a preliminary 
step, to inquire what amount of credit is to be 
placed in the detached portions of Egyptian history 
which have come down to us, and whether, the 
narrative being avowedly faulty, we can safely 
trust to the statement of the name of the monarch 
of the Exode. 

Independently of the sacred writings there are 
two distinct sources whence such knowledge as we 
possess of that portion of Egyptian history which 
we are now considering is derived; viz. fragments 



CH. IV.] 



THE MONUMENTS. 



81 



of ancient Egyptian history, and the Egyptian 
monuments. 

Firstly. The writings of Manetho, the great 
Egyptian historian, are unfortunately lost, with the 
exception of such extracts as are preserved to us 
in the works of ancient authors, whose chief object 
in quoting from him has been to confute his state- 
ments 6 . Such is the case with Josephus. Manetho 
records the occupation of Egypt at different times 
by two foreign races — shepherd kings, and shep- 
herd captives. Josephus, misled by national 
vanity, identifies his countrymen with the for- 
mer, and pronounces the entire history of the 
latter a fabrication, with what justice the reader 
will be able to decide, by an attentive perusal of 
the whole of the extracts Josephus gives from 
various Egyptian authors inserted in the following 
chapter. 

Manetho is generally supposed to have been 
the chief of the priests of Hieropolis, a body of 
men the most distinguished for learning of any in 
Egypt. He wrote the history of his country and of 
the dynasties of her kings at the command of his 
sovereign, Ptolemy Philadelphus, and the materials 
for his work were derived principally from the 
chronicles of the priests, preserved in the temples 
of their gods. 

The loss of the original work is a circumstance 

6 See Spinetto's Lectures, p. 12. 

G 



82 



MANETHO AND 



[PART I. 



to be deplored, not only because our materials for 
reconstructing a history of T ^gypt are thereby re- 
duced to so limited a scale, but farther, because 
while those extracts which have been made from it 
by other authors are found by internal evidence to 
be in part corrupt, we are deprived of the standard 
by which corruption or interpolation might have 
been ascertained and corrected. 

In days gone by it has been the fashion to decry 
the testimony of Manetho; latterly, however, the 
tide appears to have turned. Niebuhr speaking of 
him in his Lectures, says, "He states that he 
derived his materials from ancient documents of 
the country, and rational criticism cannot have the 
least doubt as to the truth of his assertion. Even 
before the discovery which enables us to read hiero- 
glyphics, it would have been irrational to reject his 
authority, but now his statements are confirmed by 
Champollion having read the names of the Egyptian 
kings 7 ." 

I could multiply quotations on this point from 
Kenrick, Bunsen, Gliddon, &c, but I refrain. 

With regard to the enormous periods assigned 
by him to the earlier dynasties, it is obvious that 
the onus of such misstatements must rest less with 
Manetho the copyist, than with the compilers of 
those priestly documents whence his information 
was derived. 



7 Vol. i. p. 40. 



CH. IV.] 



THE MONUMENTS. 



83 



Secondly. The ancient monuments of Egypt are 
for the most part covered with hieroglyphics, which 
for two thousand years defied the ingenuity of all 
who attempted to decipher them. At length, how- 
ever, light has broken in upon the darkness, and 
the learned of the nineteenth century are enabled 
to translate these " once recondite annals," and 
disclose their secrets to the world. 

That the important events, pertaining to the 
history of Egypt and the lives of her people, are 
registered upon the face of those stupendous 
edifices, which even in their ruins fill the mind of 
the beholder with the profoundest astonishment 
and admiration, is matter of notoriety. Indeed 
those walls may be regarded in a great measure as 
the imperishable archives of Egyptian theology, 
history, and biography. 

But this assertion must be made with a reserva- 
tion. For, with reference more especially to the 
historical portion of the monuments, the question 
immediately suggests itself whether they present to 
us the facts or the perversions of Egyptian history ? 
And on this point the opinions of the learned are 
divided; for while some hold that as national 
records they afford the safest basis on which to 
raise a superstructure of historical restoration, 
others maintain that in numerous instances they 
can be regarded only as parts of a system of exag- 
geration and misrepresentation. Thus, for example, 

G 2 



84 



MANETHO AND 



[PART I. 



while Poole 8 places no reliance on any statement of 
Manetho not in some degree corroborated by the 
monuments, Hengstenberg, speaking more particu- 
larly of that portion of them which represents the 
conquests of the ancient Pharaohs over foreign 
nations, designates them as " conquests which cer- 
tainly were oftener achieved in imagination than in 
reality, as indeed the almost regular recurrence of 
these representations under nearly all the ancient 
Pharaohs shows, so that nothing can be more 
erroneous than the present popular way of relying 
upon them without inquiry as sources of historical 
truth V And when we bear in mind that those 
monuments were designed by a priesthood of whom 
the reigning monarch was chief, so that whatsoever 
of evil befel the one cast its baneful shadow over 
the other; that, as Osburn observes, in their eyes 
" defeat was infamy," we shall probably be right in 
regarding many of these monuments as not merely 
authoritative suppressions, but rather as utter per- 
versions of the truth, as records yielding the truest 
return to an inquirer who examines them with 
suspicion and a certain amount of incredulity. 
Those events of Egyptian history, which derogated 
from the glory of the nation, were set forth by these 
historiographers in perverted form, or got rid of by a 

8 Horse JEgyptiacae, p. 91. 

9 Hengstenberg' s Egypt, p. 195. 



CH. IV.] 



THE MONUMENTS. 



85 



convenient omission. As Taylor observes in one 
of his notes on Hengstenberg, " The Egyptians, 
naturally enough, were unwilling to preserve any 
memorial of their national disgrace." And he 
pleasantly illustrates the observation by adding, 
that " there is a very popular history of Russia in 
which there is not a word said of the battle of 
Narva 1 ." 

Weighing then the conflicting statements of 
Manetho and the monuments, we shall in all proba- 
bility judge wisely in trusting to the veracity of an 
historian, who professes to collect his materials 
from the secret annals of the priesthood, rather 
than to those public panegyrics which they pre- 
sented to the eyes of the populace. Distrusting 
in a measure both, we shall give the preference 
rather to one, who, making all fair allowances for 
national pride, may yet be a sober and honest 
writer, than to records of which we need fur- 
nish only a few specimens to prove them but too 
often climaxes of arrogance, adulation, and bom- 
bast. 

Thirdly. In collating these comparatively unsa- 
tisfactory elements of information with the pages of 
Sacred Writ, every believer will feel that it is only 
where they are not opposed to the records of 
infallible truth, that they can be safely admitted as 
materials for the reconstruction of Egyptian history. 



1 Page 253. 



86 



MANETHO AND 



[PART I. 



They may be employed in illustration or augmen- 
tation of, but not in contradiction to, the statements 
of Holy Scripture. Where the same event seems 
to be set forth by the historians of Egypt and the 
sacred penmen of Israel, the uninspired narrative 
must be interpreted in a manner agreeable to the 
declarations of those who wrote from the dictates 
of the Holy Spirit. Revelation cannot yield to 
Manetho or the monuments. Unerring truth cannot 
succumb to the assertions of a writer whose autho- 
rity is problematical; nor can chronicles, which 
stoop not to palliate, much less to hide, the errors, 
the follies, the defeats of their heroes, be placed on 
a level with monuments which are dumb when 
they should speak of dishonour ; and which so 
overcolour the registers of national victory, that 
the facts can be gleaned by those alone who are 
adepts in interpreting the language of hyper- 
bole. 

Amid records so constructed can we expect to 
discover a vestige of the Exode ? — that one vast 
national overthrow, beside which every other which 
the world's history can produce must pale in com- 
parison ? Assuredly not, except in misrepresenta- 
tion and perversion. The Israelites must have 
been depicted as vanquished, or the event could 
not have been publicly recorded. No marvel then, 
if hitherto not a single monument has been dis- 
covered touching on the subject. 

Manetho, indeed, living many centuries subse- 



CH. IV.] 



THE MONUMENTS. 



87 



quent to this terrible national catastrophe, would 
not have the same cogent inducements for passing 
over in silence that most signal instance of the 
Divine displeasure. Yet, he too, deriving his in- 
formation from the secret histories of the Egyp- 
tian priesthood, found and reproduced these facts 
in so distorted a form, that the Israelitish and 
Egyptian accounts of this momentous event, are 
proved to refer to the same event, less by a 
similarity in the circumstances related by either 
party, than by the identity of names employed by 
both. 

The Pentateuch and Manetho in referring to a 
great crisis, which took place in Egypt, both speak 
of Moses and of Joseph. And on this account it 
is, that I think we are justified in assuming that, 
however grossly the latter may have misrepresented 
the circumstances of the event, yet that the names 
of persons, represented by him as engaged in these 
miraculous transactions, have not been falsified. 
Nor, indeed, however egregiously facts may have 
been distorted, could the appellations of those who 
figured so prominently in this turning point of 
Egyptian greatness have been easily changed. The 
name of the Pharaoh of the Exode must have been 
familiar to every Egyptian. Under whatever 
colours the catastrophe, which had taken place on 
the borders of their country, may have been re- 
presented at Memphis by the priests, an alteration 
in the name of their monarch could not have been 



88 



MANETHO AND 



[PART I. 



palmed upon his subjects. They might state that 
the soldiers had carried away the leprous people 
into the desert, and wrapped them in sheets of lead, 
and let them down into the sea 2 , in opposition to 
the description of Moses with regard to the Egyp- 
tians, " Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea 
covered them, they sank as lead in the mighty 
waters," — but the name of the king who commanded 
those soldiers they would not dare to change; 
that must have remained unaltered, however the 
event of his overthrow may have been falsified. 
The intervention of a barren desert may have 
facilitated the perversion of the one, it could not 
have served to efface the memory of the other. 
And, with respect to the priestly records, we 
may observe, that the utter distortion of the his- 
tory of the Exode wholly obviated the necessity 
of imposing a fictitious name upon its royal 
victim. 

I contend, therefore, that in this instance it is 
highly improbable that Egyptian nomenclature 
should have been tampered with, albeit Egyptian 
history is known to be distorted. In centuries 
to come the events of Waterloo may be tra- 
vestied, but the opposed champions will ever live 
in the tradition of nations, as Napoleon and Wel- 
lington. 

From these considerations, I accept the testimony 

2 Lysimachus, quoted by Josephus, vol. iv. p. 230. 



CH. IV.] 



THE MONUMENTS. 



89 



of Manetho with regard to the name of the mon- 
arch of the Exode. He is correct in stating the 
name of the leader of the Israelites to have been 
Moses ; I have then reason to be satisfied with his 
statement, that the monarch who opposed their 
departure from Egypt was Amenophis. 



90 



JOSEPHUS AND MANETHO. [PART I. 



CHAPTER V. 

JOSEPHUS AND MANETHO. 

As the bearing and importance of the different 
statements of Egyptian historians with regard to 
the Exode can be correctly estimated only when 
seen in connexion, I have deemed it advisable, at 
the commencement of the present chapter, to give 
the extracts from the treatise of Josephus against 
Apion. Those who are already well acquainted 
with his works can pass on at once to a subsequent 
page. 

" There was a king of ours," says Manetho, 
" whose name was Timaus. Under him it came 
" to pass, I know not how, that God was averse 
" to us ; and there came, after a surprising manner, 
" men of ignoble birth out of the eastern parts, 
u and had boldness enough to make an expedition 
" into our country, and with ease subdued it by 
" force, yet without our hazarding a battle with 
" them. So when they had gotten those that 
" governed us under their power, they afterwards 
" burnt down our cities, and demolished the tern- 



CH. V.] 



JOSEPHUS AND MANETHO. 



01 



" pies of the gods, and used all the inhabitants 
" after a most barbarous manner; nay, some they 
u slew, and led their children and their wives into 
" slavery. At length they made one of themselves 
" king, whose name was Salatis ; he also lived at 
" Memphis, and made both the upper and lower 
u regions pay tribute, and left garrisons in places 
" that were the most proper for them. He chiefly 
" aimed to secure the eastern parts, as foresee- 
44 ing that the Assyrians, who had then the greatest 
" power, would be desirous of that kingdom and 
u invade them ; and as he found in the Saite 
" Nomos (Sethroite), a city very proper for his 
" purpose, and which lay upon the Bubastic Chan- 
" nel, but with regard to a certain theologic 
" notion was called Avar is, this he rebuilt, and 
" made very strong by the walls he built about it, 
" and by a most numerous garrison of two hundred 
u and forty thousand armed men which he put 
" into it to keep it. Thither Salatis came in 
" summer-time, partly to gather his corn, and pay 
" his soldiers their wages, and partly to exercise 
" his armed men, and thereby to terrify foreigners. 
" When this man had reigned nineteen years, after 
" him reigned another, whose name was Baeon, for 
" forty-four years ; after him reigned another, 
u called Apachnas thirty-six years and seven 
" months ; after him Aphophis reigned sixty-one 
" years, and then Jonias fifty years and one month ; 
after all these reigned Assis forty-nine years 



92 



JOSEPHUS AND MANETHO. [PART I. 



" and two months. And these six were the first 
u rulers among them, who were all along making 
" war with the Egyptians, and were very desirous 
" gradually to destroy them to the very roots. 
" This whole nation was styled Hycsos, that is, 
" shepherd kings; for the first syllable Hyc, ac- 
" cording to the sacred dialect, denotes a king, as 
" is Sos a shepherd, — but this according to the 
" ordinary dialect ; and of these is compounded 
" Hycsos ; but some say that these people were 
" Arabians." Josephus here interposes the follow- 
ing remark:— " Now in another copy it is said that 
" this word does not denote kings, but on the 
" contrary denotes captive shepherds, and this on 
" account of the particle Hyc; for that Hyc, with 
" the aspiration, in the Egyptian tongue again 
" denotes shepherds, and that expressly also; and 
" this to me seems the more probable opinion, and 
" most agreeable to ancient history." 

" 1 These people,' continues Manetho, 4 whom we 
" have before named kings and called shepherds 
" also, and their descendants, kept possession of 
" Egypt five hundred and eleven years.' After 
" these, he says that 4 the kings of the Thebai's 
" and of the other parts of Egypt made an in- 
" surrection against the shepherds, and that then 
" a terrible and long war was made between 
" them.' He says further, that ' under a king 
" whose name was Alisphragmuthosis, the shep- 
u herds were subdued by him, and were indeed 



CH. V.] JOSEPHUS AND MANETHO. 



93 



" driven out of other parts of Egypt, but were 
" shut up in a place that contained ten thousand 
" acres; this place was named Avaris.' Manetho 
" says that 'the shepherds built a wall round all 
" this place, which was a large and a strong wall, 
u and this in order to keep all their possessions and 
" their prey within a place of strength; but that 
" Thummosis, the son of Alisphragmuthosis, made 
" an attempt to take them by force and by siege, 
" with four hundred and eighty thousand men to 
" lie round about them; but that upon his despair 
" of taking the place by that siege, they came to a 
" composition with them that they should leave 
" Egypt, and go, without any harm to be done to 
" them, whithersoever they would; and that after 
" this composition was made they went away with 
" their whole families and effects, not fewer in 
u number than two hundred and forty thousand, 
u and took their journey from Egypt, through the 
" wilderness, for Syria; but that as they were in 
" fear of the Assyrians, who had then the domi- 
" nion over Asia, they built a city in that country 
" which is now called Judsea, and that large enough 
" to contain this great number of men, and called 
" it Jerusalem." 

Such is the account extracted from Manetho, in 
which Josephus recognises the history of his an- 
cestors ! Deeply, indeed, must he have been in- 
terested in establishing the antiquity of his nation 
to have put forth such a statement, and to have 



94 



JOSEPHUS AND MANETHO. [PART I. 



deluded himself with, or sought to impress upon 
others, the notion that it referred to the sojourn 
of Israel in Egypt, and to their final escape from 
the bondage under which they had so long groaned. 
The only point of agreement lies in the mention of 
Judsea and of the city of Jerusalem, and even this 
apparent coincidence will not bear the test of a 
closer investigation ; for while the Hycsos are said 
to have taken their journey from Egypt through 
the wilderness for Syria, and to have built a city in 
that country which is now called Judsea, and called 
it Jerusalem, the Israelites, we know, after having 
passed through the wilderness of Egypt, sojourned 
for forty years in that of Sinai, and so far from 
building Jerusalem, did not even gain possession 
of it until the reign of David ! . 

Let us now examine the statement stigmatized 
by Josephus as a fabrication, but in which more 
dispassionate readers will probably recognise a 
somewhat truer, though very incorrect account 
of the history of the Jewish people. 

" When this people or shepherds were gone out 
" of Egypt to Jerusalem, Tethmosis the king of 
" Egypt, who drove them out, reigned afterwards 
" twenty-five years and four months, and then 
" died. After him his son Chebron took the king- 
" dom for thirteen years; after whom came Ame- 

1 The building spoken of in 1 Chron. xi. 8, was merely an 
augmentation and restoration. See the passage. 



CH. V.] JOSEPHUS AND MANETHO. 



95 



" nophis, for twenty years and seven months ; 
" then came his sister Amesses, for twenty-one years 
" and nine months ; after her came Mephres, for 
" twelve years and nine months ; after him was 
" Mephramuthosis, for twenty-five years and ten 
" months ; after him was Thmosis, for nine years 
" and eight months ; after him came Amenophis, 
" for thirty years and ten months ; after him came 
" Or us, for thirty-six years and five months ; then 
" came his daughter Acenchres, for twelve years 
" and one month ; then was her brother Rathotis, 
" for nine years ; then was Acencheres, for twelve 
" years and five months ; then came another Acen- 
" cheres, for twelve years and three months ; after 
u him Armais, for four years and one month ; after 
" him was Harnesses, for one year and four months; 
u after him came Armesses Miammoun, for sixty 
" years and two months; after him Amenophis, for 
" nineteen years and six months ; after him came 
" Sethosis and Harnesses, who had an army of horse 
u and a naval force. This king appointed his 
u brother Armais to be his deputy over Egypt. 
" [In another copy it stood thus :— " After him 
" came Sethosis, and Ramesses, two brethren, the 
" former of which had a naval force, and in a hos- 
" tile manner destroyed those that met him upon 
u the sea ; but as he slew Ramesses in no long 
" time afterward, so he appointed another of his 
" brethren to be his deputy over Egypt.] He also 
" gave him all the other authority of a king, but 



96 



JOSEPHUS AND MANETHO. [PART I. 



" with these only injunctions, that he should not 
" wear the diadem, nor be injurious to the queen, 
" the mother of his children, and that he should 
" not meddle with the other concubines of the 
" king, while he made an expedition against 
" Cyprus and Phenicia, and besides against the 
" Assyrians and the Medes. He then subdued 
u them all, — some by his arms, some without fight- 
" ing, and some by the terror of his great army; 
" and being puffed up by the great successes he 
" had had, he went still on the more boldly, and 
" overthrew the cities and countries that lay in 
" the eastern parts. But after some considerable 
" time Armais, who was left in Egypt, did all 
" those very things, by way of opposition, which his 
" brother had forbid him to do, without fear ; for 
" he used violence to the queen, and continued to 
" make use of the rest of the concubines, with- 
" out sparing any of them ; nay, at the persua- 
" sion of his friends he put on the diadem, and 
" set up to oppose his brother. But then he who 
" was set over the priests of Egypt wrote letters to 
u Sethosis, and informed him of all that had hap- 
" pened, and how his brother had set up to oppose 
" him ; he therefore returned back to Pelusium 
" immediately, and recovered his kingdom again. 
" The country also was called from his name Egypt, 
" — for Manetho says that Sethosis himself was 
" called Egyptus, as his brother Armais was called 
" Danaus." 



CH. V.] 



JOSEPHUS AND MANETHO. 



97 



" This," adds Josephus, " is Manetho's account ; 
" and evident it is from the number of years by 
" him set down belonging to this interval, if they 
u be summed up together, that these shepherds, 
" as they are here called, who were no other than 
" our forefathers, were delivered out of Egypt, 
•' and came thence and inhabited this country 
" three hundred ninety and three years before 
u Danaus came to Argos, although the Argives 
u look upon him as their most ancient king. Ma- 
" netho, therefore, bears this testimony to two 
u points of the greatest consequence to our purpose, 
" and those from the Egyptian records themselves. 
" In the first place, that we came out of another 
" country into Egypt; and that withal our deliver- 
" ance out of it was so ancient in time, as to have 
" preceded the siege of Troy almost a thousand 
" years. But then, as to those things which 
" Manetho adds, not from the Egyptian records, 
" but, as he confesses himself, from some stories of 
" an uncertain original, I will disapprove them 
" hereafter particularly, and shall demonstrate that 
" they are no better than incredible fables." . . . 

In a subsequent portion of his treatise against 
Apion, Josephus thus attempts to fulfil his promise. 

" And now I will turn my discourse to one of 
u their principal writers, whom I have a little 
u before made use of as a witness to our antiquity 
u — I mean Manetho. He promised to interpret 
u the Egyptian history out of their sacred writings, 

H 



98 



JOSEPHUS AND MANETHO. [PART I. 



" and premised this ; That 4 our people had come 
" into Egypt many ten thousands in number, and 
44 subdued its inhabitants;' and when he had far- 
44 ther confessed That 4 we went out of that country 
" afterward, and settled in that country which is 
44 now called Judea, and there built Jerusalem and 
" its temple.' Now thus far he followed his ancient 
" records ; but after this he permits himself, in 
" order to appear to have written what rumours 
44 and reports passed abroad about the Jews, and 
44 introduces incredible narrations, as if he would 
44 have the Egyptian multitude, that had the 
44 leprosy and other distempers, to have been 
44 mixed with us, as he says they were, and that 
44 they were condemned to fly out of Egypt toge- 
44 ther; for he mentions Amenophis, a fictitious 
44 king's name, though on that account he durst not 
44 set down the number of years of his reign, which 
44 yet he had accurately done as to the other kings 
44 he mentions. He then ascribes certain fabulous 
44 stories to this king, as having in a manner 
44 forgotten how he had already related that the de- 
44 parture of the shepherds for Jerusalem, had been 
44 five hundred and eighteen years before, for Teth- 
44 mosis was king when they went away. Now from 
44 his days, the reigns of the intermediate kings, 
44 according to Manetho, amounted to three hun- 
44 dred and ninety-three years, as he says himself, 
44 till the two brothers, Sethos and Hermeus; the 
44 one of which, Sethos, was called by that other 



GH. V.] JOSEPHUS AND MANETHO. 



99 



" name of Egyptus, and the other Hermeus, by that 
" of Danaus. He also says, that Sethos cast the 
" other out of Egypt, and reigned fifty-nine years, 
" as did his eldest son Rhampses reign after him 
" sixty-six years. When Manetho, therefore, had 
" acknowledged that our forefathers were gone out 
" of Egypt so many years ago, he introduces his 
" fictitious king Amenophis, and says thus : — ' This 
" king was desirous to become a spectator of the 
" gods, as had Orus, one of his predecessors in 
" that kingdom, desired the same before him; he 
" also communicated that his desire to his name- 
" sake Amenophis, who was the son of Papis, and 
" one that seemed to partake of a divine nature, 
" both as to wisdom and the knowledge of futuri- 
" ties.' Manetho adds, how this namesake of his 
" told him that c he might see the gods, if he 
" would clear the whole country of the lepers, and 
" of the other impure people; that the king was 
" pleased with this injunction, and got together all 
" that had any defect in their bodies out of Egypt, 
" and that their number was eighty thousand, 
" whom he sent to those quarries which were on the 
" east side of the Nile, that they might work in 
" them, and might be separated from the rest of 
" the Egyptians.' He says farther, That 1 there 
" were some of the learned priests that were pol- 
" luted with the leprosy ; but that still this Ame- 
" nophis, the wise man and the prophet, was afraid 
" that the gods would be angry at him and at the 
L.ofC. h 2 



100 



JOSEPHUS AND MANETHO. 



[PART I. 



" king, if there should appear to have been violence 
44 offered them; who also added this farther [out 
" of his sagacity about futurities] that certain 
44 people would come to the assistance of these pol- 
14 luted wretches, and would conquer Egypt, and 
44 keep it in their possession thirteen years ; that, 
44 however, he durst not tell the king of these 
44 things, but that he left a writing behind him 
44 about all these matters, and then slew himself, 
44 which made the king disconsolate.' After which 
44 he writes thus verbatim : 4 After those that were 
44 sent to work in the quarries had continued in 
44 that miserable state for a long while, the king 
44 was desired that he would set apart the city 
44 Avaris, which was then left desolate of the shep- 
44 herds, for their habitation and protection; which 
44 desire he granted them. Now this city, accord - 
44 ing to the ancient theology, was Typho's city. 
44 But when these men were gotten into it, and 
44 found the place fit for a revolt, they appointed 
44 themselves a ruler out of the priests of Helio- 
44 polis, whose name was Osarsiph, and they took 
44 their oaths that they would be obedient to him 
44 in all things. He then, in the first place, made 
44 this law for them, that they should neither wor- 
44 ship the Egyptian gods, nor should abstain from 
44 any of those sacred animals which they have in 
44 the highest esteem, but kill and destroy them all ; 
44 that they should join themselves to nobody but 
44 to those that were of this confederacy. When he 



CH. V.] 



JOSEPHUS AND MANETHO. 



101 



" had made such laws as these, and many more 
" such as were mainly opposite to the customs of 
" the Egyptians, he gave order that they should 
" use the multitude of the hands they had in build- 
" ing walls about their city, and make themselves 
" ready for a war with king Amenophis, while he 
" did himself take into his friendship the other 
" priests and those that were polluted with them, 
" and sent ambassadors to those shepherds who had 
" been driven out of the land by Tethmosis to the 
" city called Jerusalem ; whereby he informed them 
" of his own affairs and of the state of those 
" others that had been treated after such an igno- 
" minious manner, and desired that they would 
" come with one consent to his assistance in this 
" war against Egypt. He also promised that 
" he would, in the first place, bring them back to 
" their ancient city and country Avaris, and pro- 
" vide a plentiful maintenance for their multitude; 
" that he would protect them, and fight for them as 
u occasion should require, and would easily reduce 
" the country under their dominion. These shep- 
u herds were all very glad of this message, and 
" came away with alacrity altogether, being in 
" number two hundred thousand men; and in a 
" little time they came to Avaris. And now Ame- 
" nophis, the king of Egypt, upon his being in- 
" formed of their invasion, was in great confusion, 
" as calling to mind what Amenophis the son of 
" Papis had foretold him ; and in the first place he 



102 



JOSEPHUS AND MANETHO. 



[PABT I. 



" assembled the multitude of the Egyptians, and 
u took counsel with their leaders, and sent for their 
" sacred animals to him, especially for those that 
" were principally worshipped in their temples, 
" and gave a particular charge to the priests dis- 
" tinctly that they should hide the images of their 
" gods with the utmost care. He also sent his son 
" Sethos, who was also named Harnesses, from his 
" father Rhampses, being but five years old, to a 
" friend of his. He then passed on with the rest 
" of the Egyptians, being three hundred thousand 
" of the most warlike of them, against the enemy, 
u who met them. Yet did he not join battle with 
" them ; but thinking that would be to fight against 
" the gods, he returned back, and came to Mem- 
" phis ; where he took Apis and the other sacred 
" animals which he had sent for to him, and pre- 
" sently marched into Ethiopia, together with his 
" whole army and multitude of Egyptians; for the 
" king of Ethiopia was under an obligation to him, 
u on which account he received him, and took care 
" of all the multitude that was with him, while the 
" country supplied all that was necessary for the 
" food of the men. He also allotted cities and vil- 
" lages for this exile, that was to be from its be- 
" ginning during those fatally determined thirteen 
w years. Moreover, he pitched a camp for his 
" Ethiopian army as a guard to king Amenophis, 
" upon the borders of Egypt. And this was the 
M state of things in Ethiopia. But for the people 



CH. V.] 



JOSEPHUS AND MANETHO. 



103 



" of Jerusalem, when they came down together 
" with the polluted Egyptians, they treated the 
" men in such a barbarous manner, that those who 
" saw how they subdued the forementioned country, 
u and the horrid wickednesses they were guilty of, 
" thought it a most dreadful thing; for they did 
" not only set the cities and villages on fire, but 
" were not satisfied till they had been guilty of 
" sacrilege, and destroyed the images of the gods, 
" and used them in roasting of those sacred ani- 
" mals that used to be worshipped, and forced the 
u priests and prophets to be the executioners and 
" murderers of those animals, and then ejected 
" them naked out of the country. It was also 
" reported that the priest who ordained their polity 
u and their laws, was by birth, of Heliopolis, and 
u his name Osarsiph, from Osiris who was the god 
" of Heliopolis; but that, when he was gone over 
" to these people, his name was changed and he 
" was called Moses' This is what the Egyptians 
" relate about the Jews, with much more, which I 
" omit for the sake of brevity. But still Manetho 
u goes on, That c after this Amenophis returned 
" back from Ethiopia with a great army, as did his 
" son Rhampses with another army also, and that 
" both of them joined battle with the shepherds 
" and polluted people, and beat them, and slew a 
" great many of them, and pursued them to the 
u bounds of Syria.' These and the like accounts 
" are written by Manetho .... And now I have 



104 JOSEPHUS AND MANETHO. [PART T. 

" done with Manetho I will inquire into what Che- 
" remon says. For he also, when he pretended to 
" write the Egyptian history, sets down the same 
" name for this king that Manetho did, Amenophis, 
u as also of his son Harnesses, and then goes on 
" thus, 4 The goddess Isis appeared to Amenophis 
" in his sleep, and blamed him that her temple had 
" been demolished in the war. But that Phriti- 
" phantes, the sacred scribe, said to him, that in 
" case he would purge Egypt of the men that had 
" pollutions upon them, he should be no longer 
" troubled with such frightful apparitions. That 
" Amenophis accordingly chose out two hundred 
u and fifty thousand of those that were thus dis- 
" eased, and cast them out of the country. That 
" Moses and Joseph were scribes, and Joseph was 
" a sacred scribe ; that their names were Egyptian 
" originally, that of Moses had been Tisithen, and 
" that of Joseph Peteseph ; that these two came to 
" Pelusium, and lighted upon three hundred and 
" eighty thousand that had been left there by 
" Amenophis, he not being willing to carry them 
" into Egypt; that these scribes made a league of 
" friendship with them, and made with them an 
" expedition against Egypt; that Amenophis could 
" not sustain their attacks, but fled into Ethiopia, 
u and left his wife with child behind him, who lay 
" concealed in certain caverns, and there brought 
" forth a son whose name was MesseneJ " (in after 
years, I imagine, Ra Messes;) "'and who, when 



CH. V.] JOSEPHUS AND MANETHO. 



105 



" he was grown up to man's estate, pursued the 
" Jews in Syria, being about two hundred thousand 
M men, and then received his father Amenophis out 
44 of Ethiopia.' This is the account Cheremon 
" gives us "... . 

" I shall now add to these accounts about Mane- 
" tho and Cheremon, somewhat about Lysimachus, 
" who hath taken the same topic of falsehood, with 
" those foremen tioned, but hath gone far beyond 
" them in the incredible nature of his forgeries : 
" which plainly demonstrates, that he contrived 
" them out of his virulent hatred of our nation. 
" His words are these : 4 The people of the Jews 
" being leprous, and scabby, and subject to certain 
" other kinds of distempers, in the days of Boc- 
" choris, king of Egypt, they fled to the temples, 
" and got their food there by begging; and as the 
u numbers were very great that were fallen under 
u these diseases, there arose a scarcity in Egypt. 
" Hereupon Bocchoris, the king of Egypt, sent 
" some to consult the oracle of (Jupiter) Hammon 
" about this scarcity. The god's answer was this, 
" That he must purge his temples of impure and 
u impious men, by expelling them out of those 
" temples into desert places ; but as to the scabby 
" and leprous people, he must drown them, and 
" purge his temples, the sun having an indignation 
" at these men being suffered to live ; and by this 
" means the land will bring forth its fruits. 
" Upon Bocchoris's having received these oracles, 



106 



JOSEPHUS AND MANETHO. [PART L 



" he called for their priests, and the attendants 
" upon their altars, and ordered them to make a 
" collection of the impure people, and to deliver 
" them to the soldiers, to carry them away into the 
" desert, but to take the leprous people, and wrap 
" them in sheets of lead, and let them down into 
" the sea. Hereupon the scabby and leprous 
" people were drowned, and the rest were gotten 
" together, and sent into desert places, in order to 
u be exposed to destruction. In this case they as- 
" sembled themselves together, and took counsel 
" what they should do, and determined, that as the 
" night was coming on, they should kindle fires and 
" lamps, and keep watch ; that they also should fast 
" the next night, and propitiate the gods in order 
" to obtain deliverance from them; that on the 
" next day, there was one Moses, who advised them 
" that they should venture upon a journey, and go 
" along one road till they should come to places fit 
" for habitation; that he charged them to have no 
" kind regards for any man, nor give good counsel 
" to any, but always to advise them for the worst, 
" and to overturn all those temples and altars of 
" the gods they should meet with; that the rest 
" commended what he had said with one consent, 
" and did what they had resolved on, and so tra- 
" veiled over the desert. But that the difficulties 
" of the journey being over, they came to a country 
" inhabited, and that there they abused the men, 
" and plundered and burnt their temples, and then 



CH. V.] JOSEPHUS AND MANETHO. 107 

u came into that land which is called Judea, and 
" there they built a city, and dwelt therein, and 
u that their city was named Hierosyla, from this 
" their robbing of the temples ; but that still, upon 
" the success they had afterwards, they in time 
" changed its denomination, that it might not be a 
" reproach to them, and called the city Hieroso- 
" lyma, and themselves Hierosoly mites. 1 " 

Had Manetho merely stated that the monarch of 
the Exode was Amenophis, we should be but at 
the threshold of our difficulties, for on referring to 
his list of dynasties, we find this by no means an 
uncommon name. According to the majority of 
the lists of kings presented to us, we observe 
that in the eighteenth dynasty no less than four 
monarchs, inclusive of Amosis the first king, bore 
that appellation. And this, be it remembered, is 
the very dynasty with which we are chiefly con- 
cerned, for most, if not all, writers on Egypt are 
agreed that in it fell the Epoch of the Exodus. 
Mr. Taylor remarks \ " The eighteenth dynasty is 
of special interest in several respects. It was the 
period of conquest. In it most of the events re- 
corded in the Books of Moses occurred." So 
Gliddon 3 , "The eighteenth dynasty occupied the 
Pharaonic throne during the most brilliant and im- 
portant period of Egyptian history. The re-esta- 
blishment of supreme power on the expulsion of the 



2 Note on Heugstenberg, p. 21. 



3 Page 64. 



108 



JOSEPIIUS AND MANETHO. 



[PART I. 



Hykshos, the erection of the most magnificent 
edifices ; the conquests in Africa far into Nigritia, 
in Asia Minor to Colchis on the Euxine, and 
through Central Asia into Hindostan; with the 
sojourn and Exodus of the Israelites, combine to 
render this portion of Nilotic history teeming with 
interest." 

Confining ourselves then merely to the several 
kings bearing this name who swayed the Egyptian 
sceptre during this particular dynasty, we should 
be left to range in doubt over a period of between 
three and four hundred years. Happily, however, 
Manetho has saved us from such an embarrassing 
position ; for he expressly speaks of Amenophis the 
father of " Sethos, who was also called Harnesses from 
his " (Amenophis') "father Rhampses ;" and again, 
" After this Amenophis returned back from Ethiopia 
with a great army, as did his son Rhampses. 11 With 
this Cheremon agrees. " He also," says Josephus, 
" when he pretended to write the Egyptian history, 
sets down the same name for this king that Ma- 
netho did, Amenophis, as also of his son Harnesses." 
We cannot then admit Manetho as evidence on the 
point in question, and not come to the conclusion 
that Amenophis, the last prince of the great eight- 
eenth dynasty, was the king who perished in the 
Red Sea. Even were his numeric system in con- 
sequence difficult of disposal, I should rather dis- 
trust his chronology as handed down to us than his 
nomenclature ; for, as Niebuhr well observes in a 



CH. V.] JOSEPHUS AND MANETHO. 



109 



passage already referred to, " his statements are 
confirmed by Champollion having read the names 
on the monuments ;" whereas concerning his chro- 
nology he says, " The numbers which are taken 
from Manetho by Josephus, AfVicanus, Syncellus, 
and by Eusebius (in his Chronicle), may so easily 
be miswritten, and the differences and contradic- 
tions among them are so enormous, that the idea of 
a synchronism, e.g. with the history of Babylonia 
and Assyria, cannot be conceived even approxi- 
mately 4 .' 7 

4 Niebuhr's Lectures on Ancient History, vol. i. p. 60. 



110 



DATE OF JOSEPH'S 



[PAKT I. 



CHAPTER VI. 

DATE OF JOSEPH'S ENTRY INTO EGYPT. 

Having determined the period of the sojourn of 
Israel in Egypt, and ascertained the point of Egyp- 
tian history which synchronises with its close, 
we will proceed, as far as the conflicting dates 
permit, to trace up Egyptian chronology for a 
similar period of years, — hoping thus to arrive at, 
or at any rate approximate to, the monarch in 
whose reign Israel left Canaan to join his long -lost 
son in the land of Ham. 

According to the dates given by Josephus, we 
find on reckoning backwards from the close of the 
reign of Amenophis, the father of Harnesses Sethos, 
to the commencement of that of Mephra Thothmes, 
a period comprehending two hundred and thirty- 
nine years seven months. 

Israel sojourned in Egypt .... 215 years. 
Joseph stood before the Pharaoh . . 9 previously. 
He was brought into Egypt ... 14 before. 



CH. VI.] 



ENTRY INTO EGYPT. 



Ill 



Agreeably to this calculation, the three events 
all took place in the same reign. Israel descended 
into Egypt in the twenty-fifth year of Mephra 
Thothmes; Joseph was made ruler over the land 
in the sixteenth, and was sold into Egypt in the 
second year of the reign of the same monarch. 

If we take the chronology of Africanus, from the 
conclusion of the reign of Amenophath to the com- 
mencement of that of Amensis, the fourth monarch 
of the dynasty, a period intervenes of two hundred 
and twenty-five years, deducting from which the 
two hundred and fifteen years of the sojourn of the 
Israelites in Egypt, we find that Jacob entered it 
at the conclusion of the tenth year of Amensis ; 
that Joseph interpreted the royal dreams at the 
end of the first year of that Pharaoh, and came 
into Egypt about the close of the sixteenth year of 
the reign of Amenophthis. 

That Joseph stood before queen Amense is, I 
think, scarcely probable. 

Following the chronology of Eusebius, from the 
conclusion of the reign of Amenophis (taking the 
duration of the reign of Achencherses at twelve 
years, and that of Orus at thirty-six years), to the 
commencement of that of Amenophis, the seventh 
monarch of the dynasty, a period of two hundred 
and fifteen years intervenes. Israel then entered 
Egypt in the first year of the reign of Amenophis 
Memnon ; Joseph stood before his predecessor Tuth- 
mosis in the first year of his reign, and was brought 



112 



date of Joseph's 



[part i. 



down into Egypt in the thirteenth year of Mis- 
phragmuthosis . 

If we reckon the reign of Achencherses at six- 
teen years, and that of Orus at thirty-eight years, 
then from the close of the reign of Amenophis, the 
fourteenth monarch, to that of Amenophis Mem- 
non, is comprehended a period of two hundred and 
twenty-one years. Israel entered Egypt in the sixth 
year of that monarch; Joseph stood before Thoth- 
mes in the sixth year of his reign, and was sold 
into slavery in the eighteenth year of Misphrag- 
muthosis. 

If we take the other system of the dates of Euse- 
bius as given by Poole, from the conclusion of the 
reign of Amenophis, the fourteenth king, to the 
commencement of that of Thothmes, the sixth 
monarch of the dynasty, a period of two hundred 
and twenty years will intervene. Jacob then enters 
Egypt at the close of the fifth year of Thmosis; 
Joseph interprets the royal dreams in the twenty- 
second year of Mephra Thothmes, and is sold into 
Egypt in the tenth year of that monarch's reign. 

We will now take the numbers of the eighteenth 
dynasty as they stand in Mr. Gliddon's work. From 
the close of the reign of Amenophis Menephtha III. 
to the commencement of that of Amenophis Mem- 
non, intervenes a period of two hundred and fifteen 
years eight months. Although here the consti- 
tuting numbers are different, the result is the same 
with that of the first table which I have given of 



CH. VI.] 



ENTRY INTO EGYPT. 



113 



the numbers of Eusebius. And perhaps this result 
may not be without a sanction from Holy Scripture. 
On turning to the narrative of Pharaoh's dreams in 
the forty-first chapter of Genesis, we find the chief 
butler addressing his lord as follows : — " I do re- 
member my faults this day. Pharaoh was wroth 
with his servants, and put me in ward in the cap- 
tain of the guard's house, both me and the chief 
baker. And we dreamed a dream in one night, I 
and he ; we dreamed each man according to the 
interpretation of his dream. And there was there 
with us a young man, an Hebrew, servant to the 
captain of the guard ; and we told him, and he 
interpreted to us our dreams : to each man accord- 
ing to his dream he did interpret. And it came to 
pass, as he interpreted to us, so it was ; me he re- 
stored unto mine office, and him he hanged." The 
last clause in this passage Bp. Patrick paraphrases 
thus : — " He told me that on such a day I should 
be restored to mine office, and he told the other he 
should be hanged;" and to vindicate such a read- 
ing he refers to Jeremiah, chap. i. ver. 10. And 
Horne, in his Introduction, observes : " When an 
action is said to be done, the meaning frequently is 
that it is declared, or permitted, or foretold, that it 
shall be done." So Gen. xli. 18, " Me he restored," 
means " foretold or declared that I should be re - 
stored." I would submit, that when the passage 
before us is compared with verses 20 — 22 of the 
preceding chapter, this figurative interpretation is 



114 



date of Joseph's 



[part i. 



most unsatisfactory. The text there so expressly 
declares, " the third day which was Pharaoh's birth- 
day, ... he restored the chief butler unto his 
butlership again; . . . but he hanged the chief 
baker: as Joseph had interpreted to them;" that 
to read "me he {Joseph) restored, me he {Joseph) 
hanged," a few verses later, is scarcely admissible. 
Is not the obvious sense of the passage this : " And 
it came to pass, that as he (Joseph) interpreted to 
us so it was; me he (Pharaoh) restored to mine 
office, and him he hanged ? " The necessity for a 
figurative interpretation seems to have arisen from 
the peculiarity of the phraseology employed : " me 
he restored" instead of " me thou didst restore" &c. 
But if the date of Eusebius be correct, the chief 
butler could have made use of no other expression, 
for a death had occurred in the two years which 
had elapsed since the event referred to ; and conse- 
quently, when the chief butler said " me he re- 
stored," he alluded to the predecessor of the mon- 
arch he was addressing, and necessarily spoke of 
him in the third, not the second person. If then 
this explanation of the passage be admitted, the 
date of Eusebius and this verse of Holy Scripture 
will clearly stand out to each other in the relation 
of cause and effect. 

Having obviated the difficulty of deciding be- 
tween the comparative merits of the several dates 
affixed to the Hebrew and Samaritan texts, and 
that of the Septuagint, I must be permitted to 



CH. VI.] 



ENTRY INTO EGYPT. 



115 



observe, that if the chronological system of Ussher 
be adopted, the date assigned by him to the Exode 
1491 B.C. will be found to agree very well with 
the renewal of the Sothiac period 1322 B.C. 

This celebrated Egyptian period was one of four- 
teen hundred and sixty-one Sothiac or vague years, 
equivalent to fourteen hundred and sixty Julian 
years, — the Sothiac years of Egypt consisting only 
of three hundred and sixty-five days, without any 
intercalation. The period is called Sothiac be- 
cause the time assumed for its commencement was 
when Sirius, or the Dog-star, called by the Egyp- 
tians Sothis, and consecrated to Isis, rose heliacally 
on the first day of Thoth, the first month of the 
Egyptian fixed year, the 20th of July of our reckon- 
ing. During this great embolismic period, the 
first day of the Egyptian year, from the omission 
of the intercalation of a quarter of a day in each 
year, receded through every day of the year till it 
arrived at the point whence it originally started, 
and again coincided with the Heliacal rising of the 
Dog-star. One of these Sothiac periods came to a 
conclusion in historic times, expiring in a.d. 138-9. 
Reckoning backwards fourteen hundred and sixty 
years we come to 1322 B.C. A passage in the 
writings of the Alexandrian astronomer and mathe- 
matician Theon, published by Larcher in his notes 
to Herodotus, implies that this cycle had one of its 
beginnings, if not its institution, in the reign of a 
certain king Menophres. As there is no king in 

i 2 



116 



date or Joseph's [part r. 



the list whose name exactly answers to this, Cham- 
pollion Figeac conjectured that the king intended 
was the Ammenephthis, or Amenophis, who stands 
third in the list of the nineteenth dynasty. (See 
Kenrick's " Ancient Egypt," and Cory's " Ancient 
Fragments," from whom the foregoing statements 
are copied almost verbatim.) 

Let us now apply these remarks to the subject 
before us. 

From . . . 1491 years 
deduct 1322 

there remain 169 
Now according to Eusebius 

TEABS 

Sethos (the successor of Amenophis) reigned . 55 

Rampses 66 

Ammenephthis, in whose reign the Sothiac period 
fell 40 

161 

Hycsos interregnum after the Exode, during the 
absence of Sethos in Ethiopia 13 

174 

The Sothiac period would then fall five years 
before the death of Ammenephthis. And if, ac- 
cording to the list given by Gliddon, we suppose 
Remerri, whoever he may have been, to have 
swayed the sceptre for two years and five months 
before the Hycsos invaded and subdued the empire, 
the chronological harmony will not be interrupted. 



CH. VI.] 



ENTRY INTO EGYPT. 



117 



It may fairly be questioned, whether the igno- 
rance displayed by Josephus in confounding the 
Hycsos with the Jews were assumed, or the expres- 
sion of a sincere and genuine conviction. With 
some qualification, we may probably only do him 
justice by adopting the latter supposition. The 
points of resemblance between the Israelites and 
shepherd kings were so numerous and so striking, 
that how well soever the distinction may have 
been appreciated at their Eisode, the Exode would 
contribute to throw over both the same veil of tra- 
ditionary confusion. Both, subsequently to this 
period, presenting such embarrassing obstacles to 
the flights of Egyptian historical exaggeration, 
would be mentioned with reserve in the chronicles 
of the empire; the episode, more especially, of the 
sojourn of Israel in the kingdom of the Sun Serpent, 
would be a topic requiring such cautious and deli- 
cate treatment as to ensure as far as possible its 
early consignment to a convenient oblivion. Ere 
Josephus wrote, moreover, the lapse of more than a 
thousand years had so enveloped these momentous 
and heart-stirring events in the mists and shadows 
of antiquity, that, but for the inspired records of 
his own nation, they had been for ever buried under 
the pseudo-historical misrepresentations of an op- 
posed and bigoted people. 

Bearing in mind that Hycsos and Israelite both 
probably derived their origin from the same region, 
alike entered Egypt by the way of the desert ; that 
both by occupation were shepherds, and, although 



118 



date of Joseph's 



[part i. 



differing from each other in religious tenets, yet 
were equally opposed to the idolatrous system of 
the land of Ham; that both obtained a supremacy 
in Egypt, and were held in utter abhorrence by its 
inhabitants; that both immediately prior to their 
Exode occupied the land of Goshen, and ere quit- 
ting the kingdom involved it in incalculable misery ; 
that each respectively settled in Palestine, and 
eventually became dwellers in Jerusalem, — bear- 
ing in mind, I say, these manifold points of coin- 
cidence, we may readily imagine that in succeeding 
ages the Egyptians could scarcely continue to draw 
an adequate line of demarcation between the two, 
and Josephus himself may be excused for inad- 
vertently identifying them, as, although his pre- 
dilections were in this instance enlisted on the side 
of error, he would, less from design than from mis- 
apprehension, be led to perpetuate a delusion, from 
which the arduous investigations of these later 
days have barely sufficed to emancipate us. With 
regard to the misconception as it obtained in the 
Egyptian mind, the case may be yet more strongly 
stated. When at the time of the Exode, " Egypt 
had been destroyed," it is probable that the nation 
—for then they knew not Joseph — was really im- 
pressed with the belief that the Israelites were Hyc- 
sos, who under a false semblance had a second time 
effected a settlement in the country ; and if tempted 
by the unprotected state of Egypt, consequent on 
the overthrow of her armies in the Red Sea, the 
Hycsos, as has been supposed, invaded the land 



CH. VI.] 



ENTRY INTO EGYPT. 



119 



whilst the Israelites were wandering in the wilder- 
ness of Sinai, and held possession of it during the time 
the young Harnesses was being educated in Ethiopia, 
the popular impression would probably be, that 
those Israelites who quitted Egypt at the Exode, and 
the Hycsos who thereupon invaded it afresh, were 
to be identified; and hence the subsequent charge 
against the Israelites of atrocities, which were in 
reality perpetrated under the misrule of the Hycsos. 

It is a favourite opinion with the majority of 
Egyptologers at the present day, that Joseph en- 
tered Egypt under the dynasty of the shepherd 
kings. To that opinion I cannot subscribe. Not 
only the testimony of Manetho, but the collateral 
evidence of Sacred Writ is, to my mind, so strongly 
in favour of the contrary supposition, that a far 
larger amount of evidence than has hitherto been 
deduced from the uncertainties of Egyptian chrono- 
logy, is requisite to overthrow it. 

Mr. Nolan, whose learned and interesting work 
on this intricate subject commands attention where 
it does not induce assent, contending that Joseph's 
captivity took place in the days of the Hycsos king 
Aphophis, remarks, "It might be naturally con- 
cluded, had it not been attested by the chronologists, 
that Joseph was indebted to a prince of that race 
for his promotion in a country where foreigners 
were viewed with contempt and intolerance." 
There are scarcely sufficient grounds for this pre- 
sumption, for the peculiar circumstances under 



120 



date or Joseph's 



[part i. 



which Joseph became known at the Egyptian court, 
necessarily secured his promotion there. His 
divinely inspired prediction was the primary cause 
of his exaltation, and the steady and miraculous 
fulfilment of that prediction, ensured the per- 
manency of the favour he had obtained in the sight 
of the Egyptians. The enthusiasm which he ex- 
cited in the land of Ham is thus accounted for 
without reference to prior predilections. His in- 
terpretation of Pharaoh's dream saved Egypt and 
the known world from the horrors of a famine. 

In seeking for light on this contested point from 
the Sacred Records, the question immediately arises : 
How is it we are told that every shepherd was an 
abomination to the Egyptians, if the monarch 
before whom Joseph stood was himself of Hycsos 
lineage, and his surrounding hosts of shepherd 
race ? It may be argued, that native Egyptians 
were probably present at the Hycsos court, and 
doubtless it was part of a wise and enlightened 
policy to conciliate their national prejudices and 
predilections. We may fairly reply : if so strong a 
feeling against the shepherd race existed among 
the native Egyptians, they would not voluntarily 
have formed a part of the Hycsos court, and if 
present by compulsion, the shepherd kings, from 
what we know of the character of their administra- 
tion in Egypt, would be little disposed to respect a 
feeling so adverse to their interests. 

Moreover, is this view consistent with the Mosaic 



CH. VI.] 



ENTRY INTO EGYPT. 



121 



history of the dearth in Egypt ? That history 
assumes the fact that Egypt at this time had 
hecome one united kingdom. The preparations 
made during the seven plenteous years, imply the 
authority of the Pharaoh to have heen supreme 
over the whole land. The expressions in Holy Writ 
are " the land of Egypt," " all the land of Egypt 1 ." 
Joseph says to his brethren, " God hath made me a 
father to Pharaoh, and a ruler throughout all 
the land of Egypt 2 ; " and again, in chap, xlvii., 
where the purchase and subsequent tything of the 
land presupposes the integrity of the empire. 
Unquestionably, whichever dynasty occupied the 
throne at the commencement of the famine, it must 
have been more firmly established by the superven- 
tion of so fearful a calamity. The crown must have 
been confirmed to him who alone possessed food 
for the perishing multitude. The Theban dynasty, 
which is supposed to have been struggling for the 
recovery of its lost inheritance during the latter 
years of the Hycsos rule 3 , might, under this terri- 
ble visitation, have been utterly exterminated. By 
the continuance of the famine, moreover, all the 
coffers of Egypt and of the surrounding countries 
were emptied into the treasury of Pharaoh. When 
money was exhausted, all the cattle of Egypt is 
said to have passed into the hands of the monarch, 



1 Gen. xli. 29. 33. 41. 2 Gen. xlv. 8. 

3 See Manetho. 



122 



date of Joseph's 



[part i. 



and when these had also become the royal property, 
and bread still failed, the persons of the Egyptians, 
and all the land of Egypt, became the possession of 
the king 4 . Whatever dynasty bore sway at that 
period must have been the golden dynasty of Egypt ; 
and this is generally allowed to have been, not that 
of the shepherds, but that in which the families of the 
Thothmes and Harnesses bore so prominent a part. 

I have said that not only the land, but the 
persons of the Egyptians, became the property of 
the crown. " Wherefore should we die before thine 
eyes, both we and our land ? buy us and our land 
for bread, and we and our land will be servants 
unto Pharaoh." The arrangement made by Joseph, 
in consequence of this compact, is very remarkable. 
" As for the people, he removed them to cities from 
one end of the borders of Egypt, even to the other 
end thereof." Let us test the arguments on either 
side by the record of this circumstance in sacred 
history. Under Hycsos rule, what would have been 
the results of such a measure ? Evidently, to have 
removed the adherents and supporters of the crown 
to a distant part of the country, and to have filled 
the precincts of the court with its deadliest enemies. 
But supposing such a transfer of the people to have 
been effected under the eighteenth dynasty, after 
the expulsion of the shepherds, the consequence 
would have been, that those who had lived more 



4 Gen. xlvii. 20. 23. 



CH. VI.] 



ENTRY INTO EGYPT. 



123 



especially under Hycsos sway, and between whom 
and their ancient rulers aught of kindness might 
perchance have existed, would be transported to a 
part of Egypt, where they would be prevented by 
an intervening people from conspiring against the 
new government. Or had, as is more probable, 
the yoke of the Hycsos been so heavy, that the 
inhabitants of Lower Egypt still regarded with 
terror and aversion those who were now driven 
beyond the borders of their land, they would by this 
allotment be removed from a situation where in 
case of fresh invasion their hearts would melt from 
fear, while that Theban race, which had ever been 
hostile to Hycsos rule, and which under Amosis 
had been instrumental in expelling them from the 
country, would be placed as guards upon the 
frontiers. In the one case, the conduct of Joseph 
is inexplicable, while in the other, it bears evidence 
of the soundest judgment and policy. 

Farther: had Joseph been brought into Egypt 
during the Hycsos domination, when in after days 
the Theban dynasty rose up under Misphragmu- 
thosis and Amosis and expelled the usurpers, would 
not the Israelites have united with those shepherd 
kings, at whose hands they had received so many 
evidences of good will, to crush the assailing foe ? 
Did they act thus ? If not, even a Pharaoh would 
scarcely have reduced them to a state of bondage. 
If they did, the recollection of benefits formerly 
conferred by Joseph on his opponents need not be 



124 



date of Joseph's 



[part i. 



adduced to justify the policy of the victorious 
monarch in condemning them to the most abject 
possible condition. 

It will, I think, be conceded, that not only the 
statement of Manetho, but the inspired account 
of the history of Joseph, presents strong objections 
to the theory that he entered Egypt during the 
period of the shepherd dynasty. 

But if we refer the arrival of Joseph in Egypt to 
the earlier part of the eighteenth dynasty, every 
portion of sacred and profane history seems to fall 
into harmony. The vast riches accumulated during 
the period of the famine at once account for all the 
magnificence of this most wonderful dynasty, for 
all the costliness of those stupendous monuments, 
which for so many ages have defied the ravages of 
time; Egypt must then have been as Jerusalem in 
the days of Solomon. 

The universal detestation of any people exercising 
the calling of shepherds, which obtained in Egypt 
in Joseph's time, is at once accounted for. It was 
the effect of Hycsos misrule and tyranny. The 
extent to which this feeling was carried is thus 
graphically set forth by Niebuhr, " The indescrib- 
able hatred of the Egyptians against the Hycsos is 
frequently manifested in the monuments. A red 
Egyptian has before him a yellow Asiatic in chains 
and stamps upon him. The hatred went so far, that 
among the numberless Egyptian antiquities we also 
find a quantity of painted papyrus sandals, in the 



CH. VI.] 



ENTRY INTO EGYPT. 



125 



interior of which a Hycsos is represented, so that 
the Egyptian, in putting his foot into the sandal, 
put it upon his enemy. And these were common 
shoes, every Egyptian thus indulging in his 
hatred 5 ." 

The uninhabited state of the land of Goshen is at 
once accounted for. Goshen so admirably adapted 
for cattle had been the last stronghold of the 
Hycsos tribes. Upon their expulsion the aversion 
of the native Egyptians from their former rulers 
caused them to leave the land untenanted, if a fear 
of the possibility of their return had not also its 
share in conducing to this singular desertion of this 
most fertile portion of Egyptian soil. The com- 
mand, moreover, of Pharaoh to Joseph that he 
should, if he knew any men of activity among his 
brethren, make them rulers over his cattle, tends 
to prove, not only that the then servants of the 
king were not of shepherd extraction, but that 
their repugnance to pastoral occupations was yet so 
strong that Pharaoh had experienced a difficulty 
in finding among his own subjects men who would 
hazard the loss of caste by superintending the cattle 
of the king. 

I will now quote an observation made by Mr. 
Nolan in reference to his own system. "As we 
are acquainted with the dates of the principal 
events in the lives of Joseph and Moses, if those of 



5 Lectures, vol. i. p. 43. 



126 



date of Joseph's 



[part i. 



the sovereigns' reigns under whom they lived are 
accurately determined, when a comparison is in- 
stituted between them it cannot fail to exhibit coin- 
cidences by which the pagan chronology may be 
confirmed, or to reveal discrepancies by which it 
may be convicted of error V However striking a 
portion of Mr. Nolan's theory may be, I cannot 
but think that this remark decidedly militates 
against it, the difficulties attaching to the hypothesis 
that Joseph entered Egypt during the period of 
the Hycsos rule being so serious, that the portions 
of sacred and profane history which are supposed 
to synchronise do, on the contrary, tend rather to 
repudiate each other. 

Another reason, which induces me to dissent 
from Mr. Nolan's view that the Exodus took place 
at the close of the reign of the third Thothmes, is 
this: if he be correct in adopting Archbishop 
Ussher's system of chronology, the date of the death 
of Thothmes cannot be made to agree with what is 
known of the expiration of the celebrated Sothiac 
period. 

I have already stated that Champollion supposes 
this celebrated canicular period to have had one of 
its beginnings during the reign of Ammenephthis, 
who stands third in the list of the nineteenth 
dynasty. Lepsius, on the contrary, while he is so 
fully satisfied that it commenced 1322 B.C. that he 
makes it the initial date of an inscription which he 
6 Page 402, 



CH. VI.] 



ENTRY INTO EGYPT. 



127 



dedicated to the king of Prussia, and placed by the 
entrance of the Pyramid of Cheops, yet holds that 
the period had its beginning at the close of the life 
of Amenophis Menephtha, who stands last on the 
list of the monarchs of the eighteenth dynasty. 

Granting Champollion to be right in his con- 
clusion that Ammenephthis, the third king of the 
nineteenth dynasty, was the monarch in whose reign 
the Sothiac period closed, Ussher's date falls in the 
reign of Amenophis Menephtha. Supposing Lep- 
sius correct in assuming Amenophis Menephtha to 
have witnessed the termination of this great Egyp- 
tian period, Ussher's date falls (whether we include 
the thirteen years of Hycsos usurpation or not) in 
the reign of Amenophis Memnon. Allowing then 
the Archbishop's system to be the true one, either 
view excludes a Thothmes, and compels us to 
accept an Amenophis as the king of the Exode. 

And, indeed, but for certain opposing points, 
there are circumstances which might lead us to 
doubt whether Amenophis Memnon were not the 
monarch in question. One of these difficulties, 
that of placing the entrance of Joseph into Egypt 
during the dynasty of the shepherds, is removed, if 
the following statement of Lepsius be correct. 
Speaking of Memphis he says, " There lived Joseph, 
and ruled the land, under one of the mightiest 
and wisest Pharaohs of the new empire, after the 
expulsion of the Hycsos 7 ." In this case, the 
7 Letters, pp. 20. 27. 



128 



date of Joseph's 



[pakt I. 



picture of the brickmaking would have its weight, 
though too much stress has probably been laid 
upon it, those only who have visited the spot being 
competent to decide whether the faces be unde- 
niably Jewish ; and much of Mr. Nolan's reason- 
ing 8 , and particularly his assertion that Amenset is 
specially described on the monuments as Pharaoh's 
daughter, will tell with great force; nay, there are 
other points from which the theory I have to offer 
might receive curious illustration. I will not, how- 
ever, attempt to strengthen a position which ig- 
nores what Manetho has stated as a fact. He 
asserts that Amenophis the father of Sethos, was 
the monarch of the Exode, and to his dictum, in the 
absence of sufficient opposing testimony, I am con- 
tent to bow. 

I conclude, then, that the celebrated eighteenth 
dynasty witnessed the advancement, and subsequent 
bondage of the children of Israel in the land of 
Ham, and ultimately their triumphant departure. 
I believe that its great splendour and vast pros- 
perity were connected with the hospitable recep- 
tion given by one of its monarchs to the Israelitish 
nation during the famine. I hold that the signal 
and awful close of so much magnificence is to be 
referred to the cruel slavery afterwards imposed 
upon the chosen people of God. 

8 See p. 425, &c. 



CH. VI.] 



ENTRY INTO EGYPT. 



129 



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Cherres 

Armais 

Ramesses 

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130 



date of Joseph's entry. 



[part i. 



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CH. VII.] 



ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 



131 



CHAPTER VII. 

ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 

We may now go down with Jacob into Egypt, 
that land which the children of Israel entered as 
honoured and welcome guests ; dwelt in for a time 
as oppressed and abject slaves; and finally left as 
triumphant heaven-led conquerors. 

We will first review the circumstances under 
which the chosen people of God took up their 
abode in the land of Ham. Egypt, emancipated 
from the thraldom of Hycsos tyranny, had become 
an united kingdom under the rule of the mighty 
monarchs of the eighteenth Dynasty. One of these 
magnificent potentates had dreamed dreams of 
which none of the magicians nor wise men could 
tell the interpretation. All the learning of Egypt 
was assembled, the wisdom of the priests of the 
Solar Serpent appealed to, but in vain; the vision 
was a sealed mystery, which none could penetrate. 
Then was it the chief butler of the king bethought 
him of a poor Hebrew bondman whose captivity he 

k 2 



132 



ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 



[PART I. 



had shared in bygone times when under the dis- 
pleasure of Pharaoh. The butler, he too had 
dreamed a dream in his prison-house, of which his 
young companion in affliction had supplied the inter- 
pretation ; and that interpretation had been verified 
to the letter. The circumstance having been stated 
to the king, " Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and 
they brought him hastily out of the dungeon : and 
he came in unto Pharaoh." Strange meeting! 
between that dread incarnation of the Sun Serpent, 
surrounded by all the magnificence, the power, the 
learning of his idolatrous court, and that poor 
careworn captive, the severely-tried servant of the 
Lord God of Israel. "And Pharaoh said unto 
Joseph, I have dreamed a dream, and there is none 
that can interpret it: and I have heard say of 
thee, that thou canst understand a dream to in- 
terpret it." How admirable the answer to this 
address ; how jealous was Joseph lest a power should 
be ascribed to himself, which he knew to be the 
peculiar attribute of the most High. "Joseph 
answered Pharaoh, saying, It is not in me : God 
shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace." The 
monarch's visions are then propounded, and the 
same desire to give all the glory to God is still 
evinced. " Joseph said unto Pharaoh, The dream 
of Pharaoh is one : God hath shewed Pharaoh what 
he is about to do." Again, " What God is about 
to do he sheweth unto Pharaoh." And again, " The 
thing is established by God, and God will shortly 



CH. VII.] 



ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 



133 



bring it to pass That the monarch fully appre- 
ciated the force of this reiterated statement of the 
inspired interpreter, is evident from his subsequent 
remark. In reference to the advice of Joseph, 
" Let Pharaoh look out a man discreet and wise, 
and set him over the land of Egypt," &c, Pha- 
raoh said unto his servants, " Can we find such a 
one as this is, a man in whom the Spirit of God 
is ?" I quote in full the passage in which the im- 
mediate elevation of Joseph is narrated. "And 
Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Forasmuch as God hath 
shewed thee all this, there is none so discreet and 
wise as thou art: thou shalt be over my house, 
and according unto thy word shall all my people be 
ruled: only in the throne will I be greater than 
thou. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, See, I have 
set thee over all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh 
took off |his ring from his hand, and put it upon 
Joseph's hand, and arrayed him in vestures of fine 
linen, and put a gold chain about his neck ; and he 
made him to ride in the second chariot which he 
had 2 ; and they cried before him, Bow the knee: 

1 I cite these passages at the risk of being considered 
tedious, in order to show that the pre-eminent object of Joseph 
in this interview with Pharaoh was to give the glory to Grod — 
fitting index of the leading motive which would actuate him in 
his after career. 

2 " At festive processions," says Lepsius, " the chariot of the 
queen used to follow that of the king, and after it the chariots 
of the princes. Joseph was thus treated like the son of a 



134 



ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 



[PART I. 



and he made him ruler over all the land of Egypt. 
And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I am Pharaoh, 
and without thee shall no man lift up his hand or 
foot in all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh called 
Joseph's name Zaphnath-paaneah ; and he gave 
him to wife, Asenath, the daughter of Poti-pherah, 
priest of On." 

This elevation of Joseph to a rank so pre-eminent, 
was of even greater importance to his subsequent 
career than at first sight appears. For Pharaoh 
was, as I have elsewhere observed, priest, as well as 
king. "According to the result of modern in- 
vestigations," says Hengstenberg, "the Pharaohs 
themselves at all times were invested with the 
highest sacerdotal dignity, and consequently pos- 
sessed not an external authority merely, over the 
priesthood 3 ." The government of Egypt was a 
theocracy, administered by priests who were in a 
manner hereditary princes; and to a position, at 
any rate, on an equality with that of the highest 
order of the hierarchy, Joseph appears to have been 
admitted. 

With regard to the exaltation and marriage of 
Joseph, I will bring together, as briefly as possible, 
some observations of the author above referred to. 

king." — Bonn's edit. p. 477. His taking precedence of the 
chariot of the queen, shows how fully he was established as 
second in the kingdom. 

3 Egypt and the Books of Moses, p. 34. 



CH. VII.] 



ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 



135 



Joseph did not, by any means, marry the daughter 
of the high priest while a foreign shepherd, but 
after he had been fully naturalized by the king; 
had assumed an Egyptian dress, — a vesture of fine 
linen limited to the supreme hierarchy; had re- 
ceived Pharaoh's signet ring, equivalent to being 
intrusted with the charge of the administration, — 
public documents in the East being more fre- 
quently authenticated by the royal signet than by 
the sign manual — (thus king Ahasuerus conveyed 
to Haman, and afterwards to Mordecai, by his 
signet ring, the delegation of his power) ; had been 
invested with the chain of gold, which appears 
on the monuments as an invariable sign of rank, 
— the pictures of the kings and of the great being 
always adorned with them; and, finally, had taken 
an Egyptian name. When all these necessary for- 
malities had been gone through, then, and not till 
then, did Pharaoh bestow upon him the daughter 
of the high priest of the country 4 . The honours, 
thus lavished upon the Jewish prophet, fully de- 
monstrate how deeply Pharaoh was impressed with 
the conviction that he spake not of his own mind, 
but gave utterance to wisdom derived from the im- 
mediate inspiration of Omniscience. " Can we find 
such an one as this is," exclaims the astonished 
monarch, " a man in whom the Spirit of God is ?" 
But here the question immediately suggests it- 



4 See Hengstenberg. 



136 ISRAEL IN EGYPT. [PART I. 

self, to what great Being did Pharaoh allude when 
he spoke of the "Spirit of God?" If the view 
we have taken be correct, clearly he referred to 
A?nun-Kneph, for, with the Egyptians, Amun- 
Kneph and the Spirit of God were identical. Pha- 
raoh evidently intended to bestow upon Joseph the 
highest possible commendation, but his erroneous 
impressions concerning religious truth, caused him 
to express himself in a manner in direct opposition 
to this his intention. He believed the youthful 
prophet before him to be, like the magicians and 
wise men surrounding his throne, a votary of the 
Solar Serpent, the great spirit of disobedience; 
therein resembling the men of Lystra, who, in their 
amazement at the restoration of the man who had 
been a cripple from his mother's womb, lifted up 
their voices, saying, " The gods are come down to 
us in the likeness of men. And they called Barnabas 
Jupiter, and Paul Mercurius." Analogous to that 
of the men of Lystra was the thought of Pharaoh, 
when he said of Joseph, " He hath the Spirit of 
God." 

The name conferred upon Joseph, would appear 
to confirm this view of the subject. By some 
writers, it has been affirmed that Zaphnath-Paaneah 
signifies " the Kevealer of secrets," by others " the 
Saviour of the age." Where opinions are so com- 
pletely at variance, a conjecture may be permitted. 
Is it not probable that the name had some reference 
to the ideas of religion entertained by Pharaoh ? 



CH. VII.] 



ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 



137 



In order to ascertain the signification of Zaphnath, 
let us take Mr. Gliddon as our guide, and adopt 
the method which he informs us, is pursued by 
Egyptologers to unlock the meaning of Egyptian 
terms. 14 The language of the ancient Egyptians," 
he observes, "is the ancient Coptic, prior to the 
introduction of foreign engraftments In con- 
struction it is monosyllabic in all its primitive words. 
The polysyllabic words are compounded of one or 
more linguistical roots, and these are generally to 
be resolved into distinct monosyllables 5 ." The He- 
brew letter, tsadi, not having a place in the Coptic 
alphabet, Joseph's title, I imagine, would stand, in 
Egyptian nomenclature, Zaphnath, as rendered by 
our translators. Now Zaphnath appears to resolve 
itself into the following radicals : Z — Aph or Eph — 
On — Ath. Among the radicals at the commencement 
of Mr. Faber's dissertation on the Mysteries of the 
Cabiri, we find " Za, greatly," Gr. Zo, and he fur- 
nishes an example of the use of this prefix in the 
word Zagrseus, which he says is merely Z'Agraeus, the 
great Agruerus or husbandman. Mr. Deane has 
thrown considerable light on the use of this par- 
ticle, as indicative of greatness. He says, Thoth, 
the so-called reformer of Egyptian idolatry, "had 
taught the Egyptians to consider the serpent as a 
general emblem of divinity. The seventh letter of 
the Egyptian alphabet called zeuta, or life, was 
5 Page 19. 



138 



ISKAEL IN EGYPT. 



[PART I. 



sacred to him, and expressed by a serpent standing 
upon his tail. Hence the name and form of the 
corresponding letter in the Greek alphabet 6 ." Hence 
too, we may infer its power when placed before a 
proper name. Zephon then will signify, probably, 
Z'— Eph— On, the Great Sun Serpent. With 
regard to the final radical Ath, on referring to 
Bryant's list of radicals, under the word Ait, of 
which Ath is shown to be a variation, we find the 
following remark. "Another title of Ham, or the 
Sun, was Ait and Aith ; a term of which little 
notice has been taken, yet of great consequence in 
respect of etymology. It occurs continually in 
Egyptian names of places, as well as in the com- 
position of those which belong to deities and men" 
" Ham, as the Sun, was styled Ait \ and Egypt, the 
land of Ham, had in consequence of it the name of 
Ait, rendered by the Greeks Ama 8 ." 

It being customary with " the Egyptians, when 
they consecrated any thing to their deity, or made 
it a symbol of any supposed attribute, to call it by 
the name of that attribute or emanation 9 ," it is 
sufficiently obvious why, on adopting the Jewish 

6 Worship of the Serpent, p. 122. 

7 Mr. Eaber confirms the use of this radical, thus, " As, Ath, 
Ait, Es, Eire." Diss, on Cabiri. 

8 Bryant, vol. i. pp. 21, 22. Eor further remarks on this term 
the reader is referred to the pages of this learned author. 

9 Bryant, vol. i. p. 22. 



CH. VII.] 



ISEAEL IN EGYPT. 



139 



captive into the royal Hamitic family (Pharaoh 
himself being considered the incarnation of the 
Solar Serpent), the monarch conferred upon him a 
name of which the term " Ath " constituted one of 
the elements. It was by this very word that he 
was naturalized a son of Egypt. The whole title, 
Z' — Eph— On — Ath, signifying the royal Hamitic 
Sun Serpent, it formed the appropriate title by 
which Pharaoh elevated Joseph to the rank of 
royalty, placing him above the princes of the blood, 
and making him second only to himself in the 
kingdom. In confirmation of the etymological 
analysis here pursued with reference to the term 
Zaphnath, I would observe that the title Peteseph, 
assigned to Joseph by Chseremon, when etymo- 
logically treated, returns a similar result. "P," 
the prefix; "ait," a title of Ham; "es," fire, a 
name of the Sun; "eph," the Serpent. P'ait-es-eph, 
the Hamitic fiery or Solar Serpent 1 . 

Although it is of the word Zaphnath that my 

1 Bearing in mind the name of the princess to whom Joseph 
was united, I would suggest the probability that the titles 
Zaphnath and Asenath are in one respect correlatives. For as 
the former signifies the Hamitic royal Solar Serpent, so Asenath 
is resolvable into " As," light or fire, one of the titles of the 
Sun ; " Ain," a fountain ; " Ath," Ham ; i. e. the Hamitic solar 
fountain, a name peculiarly appropriate to the daughter of the 
priest or prince of On, i. e. the Sun. For the constant re- 
currence of the radical Ain in Mythology, I would refer the 
reader to the pages of the learned Bryant. See particularly 
vol. i. p. 62. 



140 



ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 



[PART I. 



subject leads me principally to treat, I will never- 
theless cast a cursory glance at the word Paaneah. 
" P " may be the Egyptian prefix, and " Anah " 
(ruy) in the Hebrew signifies to be afflicted, de- 
pressed, humbled, as does "Ani" {^V) misery, 
affliction. Whether there were any word in the 
Egyptian tongue corresponding with this Hebrew 
term, I have no means at hand of ascertaining 2 . 
Even should this not have been the case, it requires 
no great stretch of imagination to suppose the as- 
tonished Pharaoh to have put a question to the 
divinely inspired youth before him, somewhat 
similar to that addressed by Saul to David, " Who 
art thou, thou young man ? " and to have received a 
touching response analogous to that implied in the 
word Anah. Alluding to his years of sufferings in 
a strange land, Joseph may have replied in his 
native tongue, " I am a humbled, depressed, 
afflicted one." Thus, would Paaneah refer to the 
late bondage and misery of Joseph, as did Zaph- 
nath to his sudden exaltation; and, used anti- 
thetically, it may have been intended to com- 
memorate the wondrous revolution effected in his 
position by the mandate of the grateful sovereign. 

If we seek a Coptic word as the root of the 
term in question, the solution may be as follows : — 
Tattam gives u <Ltt<u, us pulchritudo (beauty), bene- 

2 On the close similarity of the Egyptian and Isr,aelitish 
speech or language at that period, see Forster, One Primeval 
Language, vol. ii. p. 3. 



CH. VII.] 



ISRAEL IN EGYPTV 



141 



facere (to do well), bonum esse (to be good)," and 
" H^Lit^i^, pulchrum facere (to do what is seemly), 
placere (to please), bonum esse (to be good)." 
Now we read of Joseph, that he was "a goodly 
person, and well favoured," and it is possible that 
the monarch, struck with the extreme beauty of 
the Hebrew shepherd, called him "the beautiful 
one," and as the Coptic term seems to imply ex- 
cellence as well as comeliness, the double significa- 
tion may not have been lost sight of in the selec- 
tion of this new title of honour 3 . 

Again, Lepsius inquiring into the signification of 
this appellation, says, " It appears to me that the last 
portion can hardly be referred to any other word than 
the hieroglyphical v " v ^ Ny/N/ (anch), Coptic 

(oneh), £.rc£> (aneh), with the article num^, 
the life." Now instead of " 03n < p ) (oneh), n (p), 
vita (life), vivere (to live), I would venture to 
propose LOH& (oneh), m^aviluv, ostendere (to show), 
patefacere (to make clear), and read n'cort^, the 
one who opens records, and then, rendering Zaph- 
nath as I have suggested, the interpretation will 
stand thus : — ' The seer is an adopted child of the 
Royal Hamitic Solar Serpent.' And this solution 
may be the more readily accepted, from the fact 
that the Coptic word cott&, " to make known," finds a 
probable response in the Hebrew term T\Yj 4 (oneh), 

3 At this day, the custom in the East of conferring titles ex- 
pressive of personal beauty is not infrequent. 

* " is by many scholars systematically treated as an " 0." 



142 



ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 



[PART I. 



to announce, to declare an oracle \ The recogni- 
tion, moreover, of Joseph's oracular powers, would 
be a special reason for his admission into the 
family of Ham, esteemed by the Egyptians the 
Father of Oracles. 

Once more. Lepsius combating the opinion that 
Israel entered Egypt during the period of the 
Hycsos sway, observes on Gen. xxxix. 1, " Here, 
as in all other passages where the Egyptian king is 
mentioned, he is called Pharaoh. This is an Egyp- 
tian designation and not a Semitic one, as we 
should have expected if the Semitic Hyksos had 
still ruled in Egypt." " They are called by Mane- 
tho (powiKEQ (Phoinikes) and 7roijuaveg (Poimanes), 
and from the most ancient times the north-eastern 
neighbours of the Egyptians were never other than 
Semitic nations V rOVQ (Phaneach) then may be 
thus understood : I adopt this Semitic Phoenician 
youth into the family of the Royal Hamitic Sun 
Serpent. 

It may be objected, that the integrity of Joseph 
would have forbidden his acceptance of a title, in 
the first portion of which the leading features of 
idolatry were manifestly so deeply involved. The 
title may possibly have been conferred, as desig- 
nating, primarily, the royal position to which 
Joseph had been elevated, the sacred terms being 

5 See Bagster's Hebrew Lexicon. 

Letters, &c, p. 476. Bonn's edition. 



CH. VII.] 



ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 



143 



employed merely from the circumstance that in 
Egypt the monarchy and the priesthood were indis- 
solubly united. But we will waive this conjecture, 
and assume the more probable hypothesis, that the 
title had quite as great reference to religious opi- 
nion as to rank and station. Joseph, acting under 
Divine guidance, may have judged, that the time 
for declaring his abhorrence of idolatry and his 
firm adherence to the worship of the God of his 
Fathers had not yet arrived. 

And, in truth, this forbearance was best calcu- 
lated to promote the great object which we may 
suppose Joseph to have had in view. That, by his 
interpretation of the dreams of Pharaoh, he ob- 
tained an immediate ascendancy over the monarch's 
mind cannot be doubted. The actual amount of 
that influence may not be determinable. But we 
appear to have sufficiently clear evidence in the 
existing state of the Egyptian monuments that a 
radical change did take place in the religious senti- 
ments of a Pharaoh of that period — a change not 
confined to the monarch himself, but spread by force 
or other means throughout the kingdom. While 
the grosser features of the idolatry would become 
much modified among the people at large, the 
monarch himself may have abjured the national 
form of worship. The proofs, however, of the in- 
spiration of Joseph being necessarily of a cumulative 
character, augmenting in intensity as the earth 
brought by handfuls, it would be desirable that his 
teaching should await the co-operation of such 



144 



ISRAEL TN EGYPT. 



[PART I. 



irresistible evidence rather than that he should, at 
the moment of his exaltation, openly brand the re- 
ligious belief of the whole nation as a doctrine of 
devils 7 . When God had made him " a father 
to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a 
ruler throughout all the land of Egypt," then 
indeed we may feel assured that he exerted his 
influence, strengthened and increased by the un- 
interrupted fulfilment of his prophecy year by 
year, to an extent almost beyond the power of 
imagination to conceive, not merely for the ad- 
vancement of the temporal prosperity of the empire, 
but for the introduction and establishment in his 
adopted country of the worship of the one true 
God. And having succeeded in opening the eyes 
of Pharaoh to the hideousness of the system of 
idolatry which prevailed in Egypt, we may conclude 
that the king himself, being converted, would 
unite with his inspired teacher in diffusing the 
knowledge of Jehovah throughout the length and 
breadth of the land. 

In corroboration of this view we may adduce a 
very remarkable passage from the 105th Psalm. 
" The king sent and loosed him, even the ruler of 
the people, and let him go free. He made him 

7 In justification of Joseph's not repudiating his new title, 
albeit connected apparently with idolatrous associations, it may 
be observed that Daniel, that faithful servant of the most 
High, under similar circumstances, did not disclaim the name 
of Belteshazzar, originating as it did in the title of the great 
idol of Babylon. (See Daniel iv. 8. 19; also ii. 26 ; v. 12, andx. 1.) 



CH. VII.] 



ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 



145 



lord of his house, and ruler of all his substance : to 
bind his princes at his pleasure; and teach his 
senators WISDOM." I cannot imagine that David 
refers here merely to prudence and discretion, to 
that political wisdom requisite for contending with 
those manifold difficulties which then beset the 
Egyptian empire. The inspired Psalmist, here as 
elsewhere, speaks probably of that " Wisdom which 
is from above." " The fear of the Lord, that is 
wisdom." We are, I think, justified in concluding, 
that such was the Wisdom which Joseph taught; 
such the Wisdom which Pharaoh embraced; and, 
deeply impressed with the conviction that "the 
Lord he is the God," he assumed such an attitude, 
as should ensure, to the extent of his power, that 
conviction being embraced by the hierarchy of 
Egypt, respected by the ministers of his kingdom, 
and spread among all people under his dominion. 

With what gladness, with wha respect, with 
what honour, would the whole population of Egypt 
welcome the venerable Jacob and his family to a 
land, which Joseph had rescued from all the 
horrors of a desolating famine! Thus we read, 
that when Joseph made himself known unto his 
brethren, " and the fame thereof was heard in 
Pharaoh's house, saying, Joseph's brethren are 
come," " it pleased Pharaoh well and his servants." 
And when at the invitation of the king the aged 
patriarch came down into Egypt, the great venera- 
tion entertained for him by the monarch is mani- 



146 



ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 



[PART I. 



fested in the fact, twice recorded, that "Jacob 
blessed Pharaoh." Now, "without all contradic- 
tion, the less is blessed of the better 8 ." Yet in the 
present instance why better ? Not because the 
shepherd of Israel was of a rank more elevated 
than the sovereign of Egypt; not, if Pharaoh re- 
tained his ancient faith, because he who professed 
to be an incarnation of the Deity was inferior to 
him who claimed merely to be heir to God's pro- 
mises; but better, because having renounced "the 
doctrine of devils " and become a sincere believer 
in the God of Joseph, the monarch craved a bless- 
ing from him who was the beloved one of the Lord 
God of Israel. In this point of view, the fact of 
Jacob blessing Pharaoh obtains increased signi- 
ficancy. 

All the circumstances considered, we shall pro- 
bably not be assuming too much in concluding 
that the sojourn of Israel in Egypt would have the 
effect, ostensibly at least, of establishing in that 
country, for a time, the knowledge and the worship 
of the true God. 

It is probably to the period in which the religion 
of Joseph was in the ascendant, that we must refer 
the prototype of that very remarkable portion of 
the hieroglyphics, which Mr. Forster puts forth in 
the second part of his " One Primeval Language." 
In those singularly interesting and startling tablets 
of antiquity, we can scarely doubt but that the 
8 Heb. vii. 7. 



CH. VII.] 



ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 



147 



sculptor has depicted the event recorded in the 
3rd chapter of Genesis. On casting our eye over 
the plate 9 , what do we find ? the tree and the fruit 
are there ; the man, the woman, and lastly the 
serpent; and the latter, not, as now, cleaving with 
belly to the ground, but erect, as though the sen- 
tence of God had not yet been passed upon him, 
and bearing on his head a pair of horns, and a 
disk, representing probably, not as Mr. Forster 
supposes, the forbidden fruit, but the sun, — another 
symbol of sovereign sway 1 . 

Had not Mr. Forster supplied the accompanying 
inscription, the theory, suggested in this volume, 
might have led us to conjecture that the hiero- 
glyphic under consideration was designed by the 
idolatrous Egyptians to indicate the serpent Deity, 
conferring on our first parents that knowledge of 
good and evil which they held to be the greatest 
boon that could be imparted by God to man. The 
deciphering of the inscriptions however, if correct, 
entirely precludes such an idea, for on examination 
of these, it is obvious that the tablet, or at all 
events its accompanying inscription, must have 
been designed not by an idolater, but by a believer 
in the truths of revelation. I conjecture therefore, 
that those remarkable memorials of the Fall of 

9 See Forster, One Primeval Language, plate 7, p. 184, et seq. 

1 The union of the horns and solar disk forms a head-dress 
of the goddess Isis. See, for instance, Kitto's Cyclopaedia of 
Biblical Literature, vol. i. p. 256. 

L 2 



148 



ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 



[PART I. 



man were executed during a period, when the reli- 
gion of the Jewish patriarchs had prevailed against 
the ancient idolatrous system of Egypt, and were 
intended to exemplify to those erst worshippers of 
the serpent, the true relation in which that arch- 
deceiver stood to the human race. And I am the 
more confirmed in this view from the considera- 
tion, that at the time when hieroglyphical carving 
attained its greatest perfection in Egypt, the record 
of the Fall must have become so utterly corrupted, 
not to say lost, under the superincumbent mass of 
fable, as to render the original truth impossible of 
recovery by a heathen priesthood, without some 
new guide to direct them in the way. Who that 
guide was can scarcely be doubted. We know of 
no other teacher at once so influential as to effect a 
religious revolution in the land, so likely to attempt 
it, and so eminently qualified for the task. A 
simple unadorned representation, such as that 
before us, of the first truths of revelation, amid the 
elaborated phantasies of a highly developed idolatry 
almost of necessity implies reaction ; and if I mis- 
take not, what I have advanced, will go far to prove 
that the great author of that reaction was the 
divinely enlightened Joseph. 

To my apprehension, however, the conclusion at 
which Mr. Forster arrives with respect to the third 
and fourth pictures 2 referred to in his volume on 
Egypt is unsatisfactory. 

2 See Forster, pp. 205, 209. 



CH. VII.] ISKAEL IN EGYPT. 149 

1st. Whereas Nos. 1 and 2 3 are evidently natural 
delineations of the Temptation and Fall, Nos. 3 and 
4 are as clearly mystic symbolisms. In any matter 
of Egyptian symbolism our first object should be to 
ascertain the precise idea attached by the Egyptians 
themselves to the particular symbol employed. Now, 
according to the Egyptian doctrine of the state 
after death, as given by Mr. Gliddon in his ex- 
tracts from the Book of the Dead 4 , the figure of a 
bird with a human head could not be a symbol of 
man in the present stage of his existence. It was 
only after death, and when mummification had 
been completed, that the soul, in its resuscitated 
state, was imagined to assume such a form, and in 
it to undergo its trial, preparatory to receiving the 
award of truth and justice. If, therefore, the 
pictures 3 and 4 have reference to the Fall, the 
form, under which Adam is represented, shows that 
death had passed upon him, and exhibits him in 
the position of one being weighed in the balances. 

2ndly. That the hieroglyph refers to a period 
subsequent to the Fall may be inferred from the fact 
that the serpent tempter is not there. 

3rdly. The respective positions of the different 
personages are totally changed. The woman has 
ascended the tree, whence, in No. 4, she pours 
down upon the man under judgment a triple stream, 
which he eagerly extends his hands to receive for 

3 See Forster, pp. 184. 200. 

4 Egyptian Archaeology, p. 19. 



150 



ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 



[PART I. 



the purpose of drinking or ablution. Quaere. Is 
that tree the Tree of life ? Is the woman who 
brought in the transgression represented as ad- 
ministering the remedy? The book of Genesis, 
which records the history of the Fall, obscurely 
foretells the restoration, and points to woman as 
the medium of restoration. The man, over whom 
judgment is impending, gladly avails himself of 
the stream poured by the woman on his head, a 
stream, which, if it symbolize the cleansing power 
of the expected Redeemer, would be effectual to 
wash away his sin. 

If this view be correct, the difference between 
Nos. 1, 2 and 3, 4 is at once accounted for, — the 
two first being natural delineations, the two last, 
mystic adumbrations. The Fall was an accom- 
plished fact, and would therefore admit of being 
historically represented. The restoration was a 
mystery which lay hidden in the depths of futurity, 
and could therefore be but symbolically adumbrated. 
Egyptiacally viewed, then, the form under which 
the man is depicted appears to set aside Mr. For- 
ster's theory, and forbids us to regard the four 
pictures as representations, whether natural or 
symbolical, of one and the same event. I would 
therefore ask, if Nos. 3, 4, have any reference to 
the preceding pictures, are they not correlatives — 
the two first delineating the history of the Fall, 
the two last shadowing forth the hoped-for re- 
storation ? 

Speaking of the inscriptions which accompany 



CH. VII.] 



ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 



151 



these pictorial representations, Nos. 3 and 4, Mr. 
Forster remarks on " the stern abruptness of their 
transition," and " the stenographic obscurity of 
their style." Kemembering then that the com- 
pound figure, half man, half bird (if Egyptiacally 
interpreted) indicates the state after death, I 
would venture to suggest that, supposing them to 
be, in a general way, correctly rendered, they par- 
take probably more or less of a retrospective 
character. 

To return to the subject more immediately 
before us ; Israel was not to remain always an 
honoured guest in the land of Ham, but was doomed 
also to taste the horrors of Egyptian bondage. 
"And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all 
that generation. And the children of Israel were 
fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, 
and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was 
filled with them. Now there arose up a new king 
over Egypt, which knew not Joseph. And he said 
unto his people, Behold the people of the children 
of Israel are more and mightier than we : come on, 
let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, 
and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out 
any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight 
against us, and so get them up out of the land. 
Therefore they did set over them task-masters, to 
afflict them with their burdens. And they built 
for Pharaoh treasure-cities, Pithom and Eaamses. 
But the more they afflicted them, the more they 



152 



ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 



[part L 



multiplied and grew. And they were grieved 
because of the children of Israel. And the Egyp- 
tians made the children of Israel to serve with 
rigour ; and they made their lives bitter with hard 
bondage, in mortar, and in brick, and in all manner 
of service in the field: all their service, wherein 
they made them serve, was with rigour V 

An argument has been based on the expression 
" a king who knew not Joseph," to prove that the 
monarch here spoken of must have been of foreign 
extraction. Mr. Faber and others have conjectured 
another invasion of the Hycsos tribes. Mr. Nolan, 
on the contrary, supposes that Amosis, the king 
who expelled the Hycsos Dynasty, is here alluded to. 
The argument on examination is not found to be 
so cogent as at first sight appears. It rests on an 
assumption that the ignorance of the monarch was 
involuntary. The expression "there arose a new 
king that knew not Joseph," is identical with that 
employed, 1 Sam. ii. 12, where it is said of the 
sons of Eli, "they knew not the Lord;" the verb 
used in the original being the same in both in- 
stances. Now the ignorance of Hophni and Phi- 
nehas was not involuntary, but wilful. It was not 
that having no opportunity they could not, but that 
with full opportunity they would not know. And 
such was, probably, the case with the Pharaoh here 
referred to ; like the sons of Eli he knew, but 



5 Exod. i. 6-14. 



CH. VII.] 



ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 



153 



refused to acknowledge ; in other words, he ignored 
Joseph, and that great reform which he in the 
plenitude of his power had effected. The religious 
opinions and associations of Egypt furnish an ade- 
quate solution to the words, and therefore, although 
we are not precluded from, neither are we driven 
to, the supposition of the establishment of a foreign 
dynasty in order to account for a fancied invo- 
luntary ignorance concerning Joseph, on the part 
of the king. 

We shall more fully appreciate the extent of the 
reaction which followed the death of Joseph, if we 
call to mind, that all which this great Israelitish 
reformer had effected was in direct opposition, not 
only to the tenets of Egyptian theology, but also to 
the fundamental principles of Egyptian polity, one 
of the most important elements of which was, as we 
have seen, that the king, on his assumption of the 
regal dignity, became the representative and incar- 
nation of the Deity. Mr. Layard's observations on 
the Despots of Nineveh are in a measure applicable 
to the sovereigns of Egypt. " The monuments of 
Nineveh, as far as they go, corroborate all extant 
history in describing the monarch as a thorough 
Eastern despot. Unchecked by popular opinion, 
and having complete power over the lives and pro- 
perty of his subjects ; rather adored as a god than 
feared as a man, and yet himself claiming that 
authority and general obedience in virtue of his 
reverence for the national deities and national re- 



154 



ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 



[PART I. 



ligion." The policy was sound, for the more he 
promoted and inculcated the worship of the Deity, 
the more would he himself as the divine incarna- 
tion be venerated and exalted. But, according to 
the Jewish theory, the whole of this vainglorious 
assumption was reversed. The Pharaoh was no 
longer "a mortal god 6 ,'' arrogating to himself the 
irresponsibility of the Deity, enforcing his rule by 
the prescriptive claims of Omnipotence. The 
peculiar presence and favour of Jehovah were the 
heritage, not of the people of Egypt but of Israel; 
the latter being the depositaries of God's oracles, 
and the chosen heirs of his promises. What a 
death-blow to Egyptian arrogance! No marvel 
then if, when time had obliterated the memory of 
the mighty deliverance accomplished by Joseph, 
the haughty spirit of the Pharaohs rejected his 
doctrines, and reasserted the ancient prerogative of 
the Egyptian crown. Israel succumbed, while 
Satan regained his lost position, and the serpent 
once more stood erect. Pharaoh again stood forth 
the proud representative and incarnation of Amun- 
Kneph, and reduced to a condition of abject slavery 
that race of whom Christ should come, God mani- 
fest in the flesh. The swept and garnished house 
again became the abode of the infernal spirit, and 
Egypt sank back into her more than midnight 
darkness. 

That the children of Israel were wholly guiltless 

6 Dr. Eadie. 



CH. VII.] 



ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 



155 



of participation in bringing about this lamentable 
reaction we cannot suppose; Holy Scripture too 
definitely asserts the contrary 7 . The exact phase 
which Jewish idolatry assumed in Egypt we know 
not ; whether among other abominations the Israel- 
ites and Egyptians emulated each other in wor- 
shipping the bones of the deceased benefactor of 
their ancestors, as Noah was worshipped after his 
death, and hosts of the spiritual Israel in later days 
have been after theirs, we have no means of ascer- 
taining. Enough is however recorded to justify 
the assertion that the salt of the earth had lost its 
savour, the light shining in a dark place had been 
darkened, and the leaders of the blind themselves 
been bereft of vision. The Holy Spirit has 
branded them with the stigma of idolatry; and 
probably the dynasty of the king who knew not 
Joseph, may have been the sword of the Lord to 
chastise his people for their transgressions, ere the 
Spoiler was himself spoiled, and the wilful king, 
who, more daring than any of his predecessors 
since the ascendancy of Joseph, presumed to arro- 
gate to himself the blasphemous title Amenophis, 
was smitten by the hand of Omnipotence, and over- 
whelmed in the mighty waters. 



7 Ezek. xx. 7, 8. Lev. xvii. 7. Josh. xxiv. 14. 



156 



THE CATACLYSM. 



[PART I. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE CATACLYSM. 

The utter antagonism manifest in the religious 
systems of Israel and Egypt, when placed in juxta- 
position, not only exhibits in stronger light the 
nature of the conflict in which Moses engaged with 
Pharaoh, but also serves to illustrate various other 
circumstances of his eventful life. 

It is to be presumed that Moses was fully in- 
structed in the peculiar tenets of either system ; in 
those of Israel by the faithful mother who had 
been hired to nurse him, — for Jochebed is included 
by St. Paul 1 in the number of those faithful ones, 
who had respect unto the recompence of reward; 
in those of Egypt, at the command of Pharaoh's 
daughter, to whom for a season he became a son. 
But for the paramount authority and influence of 
this princess, the mysteries of the priesthood of 
Egypt, and all the esoteric learning of its wise men, 
would have been to him as a sealed book. Under 



1 Heb. xi. 23. 



CH. VIII.] THE CATACLYSM. 



157 



her auspices, however, he became "learned in all 
the wisdom of the Egyptians." 

Wisdom in Joseph's time, and in that of Moses, 
were rivalisms. At the former period, a converted 
monarch had enjoined his colleague in the kingdom 
to teach his senators that wisdom which is from 
above ; at the latter, a royal idolater had sought to 
banish true wisdom from his dominions, and to 
substitute in its place, that which is "earthly, 
sensual, devilish." " Wisdom," says Calmet, " some- 
times signifies understanding, or the knowledge 
of things supernatural and divine." And again, 
" Wisdom is sometimes taken in Scripture to denote 
the talents of magicians, enchanters, fortune-tellers, 
soothsayers, &c." We may conclude that each of 
these was, by his respective teachers, unfolded to 
the view of the future lawgiver, and between the 
two it was requisite that he should make his elec- 
tion. 

It has been conjectured that, at the time Moses 
came to man's estate, the daughter of Pharaoh was 
a queen regnant, and that, being childless, she 
designed him for her successor in the kingdom \ 
The position, in the eighteenth Dynasty, occupied 
by the monarch whom I have felt compelled to 
regard as the Pharaoh of the Exode, induces me 
on this point to prefer a somewhat modified theory. 
For, on reference to the dates of the reigns of 

2 See Nolan's Chronology of Egypt. 



158 



THE CATACLYSM. 



[PART I. 



Amenophis, and his predecessor Harnesses, or Ar- 
messes Miamum, it will appear that Moses heing 
fourscore years old at the time of his mission to 
Pharaoh, must have been born about the sixth year 
of the reign of the father of Amenophis. Probably 
then, it was the intention of the daughter of Pha- 
raoh, supposing her to be without offspring, that 
the son of her adoption should, according to Egyp- 
tian custom, become the colleague of her father, 
and, after his death, succeed him on the throne. 

Either view reflects considerable light on the 
words of St. Paul : " By faith Moses, when he was 
come to years, refused to be called the son of Pha- 
raoh's daughter ; choosing rather to suffer affliction 
with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures 
of sin for a season ; esteeming the reproach of 
Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; 
for he had respect unto the recompence of the 
reward." We can well imagine the struggle be- 
tween principle and ambition, called on the one 
hand to avow his parentage, to endure suffering 
with his oppressed countrymen, and to cleave to 
the God of his fathers ; required on the other hand 
to ignore his people, to become a son of Egypt, to 
ascend the throne of the most magnificent kingdom 
of the known world, to renounce Jehovah, to ac- 
knowledge Amun-Kneph, to become a priest of 
Isis, the great champion of her faith, to bear on 
his brow the Basilisc as the source and badge of 
his power, and be hailed an incarnate God. 



CH. VIII.] 



THE CATACLYSM. 



159 



Faith triumphed: he rose superior to the trial; 
refusing to become the adopted heir of the king- 
dom, he preferred the reproach of Christ to the 
countless riches of Egypt, the remote prospect of 
an incorruptible crown, to the costly jewels of that 
which was corruptible. Boldly proclaiming his 
parentage, he beheld, possibly, another raised to 
the elevated station for which he had been destined, 
and withdrawing from the Egyptian court, in- 
curred at once its suspicion and displeasure. Such 
apparently was the severe test to which God sub- 
jected his chosen servant, ere He appointed him the 
avowed instrument of his power, the acknowledged 
oracle of his will. Fitting type of Him, who, when 
similarly tempted by Satan with "all the king- 
doms of the world and the glory of them," if only 
he would fall down and worship him, " for the joy 
that was set before him, endured the cross, de- 
spising the shame, and is set down at the right 
hand of the throne of God." 

Of the life of Moses, during his forty years' 
sojourn with Jethro, we possess but scanty notices ; 
of the sufferings endured by his countrymen in the 
interim, our information is somewhat fuller. "It 
came to pass, in process of time, that the king of 
Egypt died : and the children of Israel sighed by 
reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their 
cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage V 

One circumstance connected with the call of 
3 Exod. ii. 23. 



160 



THE CATACLYSM. 



[PART I. 



Moses to undertake the office of champion and 
leader of the children of Israel, is very peculiar, and 
merits our especial consideration. When Moses, 
hesitating to obey the voice of the Almighty, said, 
" Behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken 
unto my voice : for they will say, The Lord hath 
not appeared unto thee," " The Lord said unto 
him, What is that in thine hand? And he said, 
A rod. And he said, Cast it on the ground. 
And he cast it on the ground, and it became a 
serpent; and Moses fled from before it. And the 
Lord said unto Moses, Put forth thine hand, and 
take it by the tail. And he put forth his hand, 
and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand V 
How apposite the sign to the circumstances under 
which it was given. In the person of the king, 
who now swayed the sceptre of Egypt, the ancient 
theory of the Egyptian monarchy was rehabilitated 
in its original significance and power. On ascend- 
ing the throne, he had impiously assumed the title 
of Amenophis, (i. e. Ham the Sun Serpent, or, as 
Mr. Birch renders it, " The elevation of the ser- 
pent,") that name of blasphemy which, since the 
revolution effected by Joseph, had ceased to appear 
in the nomenclature of the Egyptian sovereigns. 
To the court of this wilful king Moses is com- 
manded to proceed, and demand in the name of the 
Almighty, permission for the children of Israel to 
go into the wilderness, and sacrifice to the Lord 
4 Exod. iv. 1—4. 



CH. VIII.] 



THE CATACLYSM. 



161 



their God. The ambassador, fully conscious of 
the difficulty and danger attendant on the mission 
entrusted to him, notwithstanding the promised 
assistance and protection of his Divine Master, 
shrinks from encountering the dread incarnation of 
the mighty Sun Serpent. God vouchsafes to in- 
struct him through the medium of symbolism, and 
works a special miracle to rebuke his unbelieving 
fears. His pastoral staff is transformed into a Sun 
Serpent, and when he flees from before it God bids 
him take it by the tail. He obeys, — thus exercising 
faith in the midst of weakness — and it becomes 
again a rod in his grasp. The inference is ob- 
vious; Amun-Kneph is impotent in presence of 
Jehovah, and his subtle representative upon earth, 
becomes but as a shepherd's crook in the hand of 
the divinely-appointed servant of God who should 
guide his chosen people to the promised pastures 5 . 

5 It may be objected that Nachash (serpent) is not identical 
with Tsephang (basilisc), and that, consequently, in assuming 
this position, I exceed the warrant of Holy Scripture. Yet, it 
is remarkable, that the serpent which is here called JNachash is, 
when the miracle is repeated by Moses before Pharaoh, de- 
nominated Tanin (dragon). But in Ezek. xxix. 3, Tanin is used 
of Pharaoh himself, the monarch being so styled, probably, from 
the circumstance that any person or thing dedicated to a god, 
took the name proper to the god himself. Nachash, therefore, 
which, says Bp. Patrick, "comprehends all sorts of serpents," 
i. e. is a generic term, may, as well as Tanin, be used to indicate 
the badge of the Pharaoh, viz. the basilisc, the Boyal Serpent of 
Egypt ! [On 

M 



162 



THE CATACLYSM. 



[PART I. 



Oh! deep indignity to the incarnation of the 
spirit of evil ! Moses holds him a prisoner in his 
grasp. " Dost thou play with him as with a hird 6 ? " 
Well saith the Almighty to his messenger, " See I 
have made thee a god before Pharaoh V 

On one title appertaining to the Koyal Serpent 
of Egypt I have not touched. It was " designated 
by the peculiar name, Thermuthis, i. e. deadly*" 
It will be convenient to refer to it here, in con- 
nexion with a very striking observation of Mr. 

On reference to the passage in Ezekiel already alluded to, it 
will be observed that Tanin there rendered dragon, seems 
rather to signify the crocodile. But the crocodile, as well as 
the basilisc, has been regarded as a symbol of the Pharaoh, that 
monarch being the supposed guardian alike of the Nile and of 
the land of Ham. 

6 Job xli. 5. 

7 Since writing the above, I have met with the following 
note in Kitto's Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature under the 
article " Adder." " JSTachash was intensely the serpent of 
serpents with the Hebrews ; and when figured with the crowns 
or caps of Upper and Lower Egypt, was the crowned serpent 
and Basilisc. It is evident that Nach-d^ led authors, and 
Pliny among the number, to affix the term aspis to the haje, 
which, however, he did not recognise as the sacred serpent of 
Egypt. The true asp is a small viper, notwithstanding the 
opinion of Mr. GreofFroy to the contrary." If the first state- 
ment in this extract be correct, there can be no doubt that 
Moses held indeed in his grasp the Royal Sacred Serpent of 
Egypt, that deadly reptile whose prototype was man's erst 
victor in paradise. 

8 Deane, p. 123. See also Bryant, vol. ii. p. 200. 



CH. VIII.] THE CATACLYSM. 



163 



Nolan on the period of time over which the ten 
plagues extended. Speaking of the month Phar- 
muthi, he says, " We learn from Josephus, who had 
access to many sources of information which are in- 
accessible to us, that the month Pharmuthi ac- 
quired its name ' deadly ' as having been that in 
which the plagues were inflicted on Egypt 9 . The 
tradition," he continues, "is corroborated by the 
significancy of the name in Coptic, as evidently 
composed of the article (Ph), the verb ap 
(ar), for ipi (iri), 4 to make,' and the noun 
fiovT (mout), 'death,' thus signifying 'making 
death ' or ■ deadly.' " He then enters into a calcu- 
lation whereby to test the truth of this tradition, 
and constructs a table to show, " that the whole of 
the visitations of the Egyptians are limited to that 
month (Pharmuthi), the earliest falling on the 
first day, and the latest on the last, while, con- 
sequently, the epithet 'deadly' or 'death-doing,' 
as applied to it, is fully confirmed ; the tradition 
respecting the manner in which it was acquired 
is verified to a degree that almost surpasses cre- 
dibility 10 ." 

It cannot fail to strike the reader that the title 
of the Royal Serpent, Thermuthis, and the name of 
the month, Pharmuthi, are both rendered into 
English by the word "deadly;" and on examina- 



9 Joseph Antiq. lib. ii. p. 64—69. 

10 Egyptian Chronology, p. 443. 

M 2 



164 



THE CATACLYSM. 



[PART I. 



tion, we find both these terms capable of a similar 
derivation. Viewed as a prefix, " Th'," is equiva- 
lent to " Ph'," and thus Bunsen treats them as con- 
vertible terms, e. g. Th'Ampthes, Ph'Amenophis. 
" Er " and " Ar " appear alike derivable from ipi 
(iri) ■ to make,' and in either case the word " muth" 
(jiour), 4 death,' is identical. It appears, there- 
fore, not improbable that the month Pharmuthi 
may have been primarily dedicated to the sacred 
asp, Thermuthis \ Wonderful indeed was it that 
the Egyptians should have selected the deadly 
serpent as the symbol of their supposed author of 
creation. Such however was the fact. Kneph and 
Thermuthis were one and the same. Like the 
writer to whom we have referred in page 71, the 
Egyptians viewed the same Being under different 
phases, as the life-giver and the destroyer. How 
striking then the view that the whole series of 
plagues was exactly included in the identical month 
specially set apart to the service of that divinity 
from whom, death- dealing as he was, they professed 
to derive not only their prosperity, their wisdom, 
and their power, but their very existence ! 

If the theory offered for consideration in the 
preceding pages be correct, the Lord God of the 
Hebrews and the God of the Egyptians must have 
been recognised as utter antagonisms; and that the 

1 For proof that the names of the Egyptian months were 
called after the names of the divinities to which the months 
were considered sacred, see Poole's Horse ^Egyptiacss, p. 7. 



CH. VIII.] 



THE CATACLYSM. 



165 



destruction of Egypt should be accomplished in the 
very month during which high festival was held in 
honour of Thermuthis, is a circumstance, the sig- 
nificance of which can scarcely be over-estimated. 
The title "deadly," still pertained indeed to this 
month of disaster, not however as heretofore in- 
dicative of the glory, but as a memorial of the 
total overthrow of the deity to whose worship it 
had been consecrated. The paeans of triumph 
sank down to a funereal wail, and the very title of 
the idol served to immortalize the history of its fall. 
We will not say, then, that the month, in the first 
instance, acquired its name "deadly" from having 
been that in which the plagues were inflicted upon 
Egypt, for the Egyptians were not a people in 
general disposed to perpetuate the memory of their 
humiliation; but we would rather say, that a title, 
originally conferred in honour of their deity, be- 
came in the hand of Omnipotence the memorial of 
its confusion, a record to preserve to successive 
generations the memory of this signal act of 
vengeance wrought upon the arch-enemy of the 
human race. 

On the plagues of Egypt it is not my intention 
to dwell: for information on this subject I refer 
the reader to Bryant. That those judgments were 
directed against the superstitions of Egypt does 
not, I think, admit of a doubt. " For the foolish 
devices of their wickedness," saith the author of 
the Book of Wisdom, " wherewith being deceived 



166 



THE CATACLYSM. [PART I. 



they worshipped serpents devoid of reason, arid vile 
beasts, thou didst send a multitude of unreasonable 
beasts upon them for vengeance; that they might 
know, that wherewithal a man sinneth, by the 
same also shall he be punished 2 ." a Our learned 
and elegant etymologist," says Mr. Deane, speaking 
of Bryant, " following up this idea, has elaborately 
and beautifully shown that wherewithal the Egyp- 
tians had sinned, by the same they were punished. 
The objects of their idolatry became the instruments 
of their punishment 3 ." Thus in taking vengeance 
on the land of Egypt, " upon their gods also the 
Lord executed judgments." 

A very remarkable instance in point, probably, 
though hitherto I believe unnoticed, is to be found 
in the closing scene of the Exode. To the final 
visitation of the Almighty upon Egypt— the de- 
struction of the first-born — the pride and obstinacy 
of Pharaoh had succumbed. Nay, as, in the first 
instance, he had, in accordance with God's predic- 
tion to Moses, refused to let the children of Israel 
go, so now, in conformity with the same Divine fore- 
knowledge, "they were thrust out of Egypt, and 
could not tarry." We read in Num. xxxiii. 3, 4, that 
" on the morrow after the passover the children of 
Israel went out with an high hand in the sight of 
all the Egyptians. For the Egyptians buried all 
their first-born, which the Lord had smitten among 



2 Wisd. ii. 15, 16. 



3 "Worship of the Serpent, p. 151. 



CH. VIII.] 



THE CATACLYSM. 



167 



them ; upon their gods also the Lord executed 
judgments." I have remarked that the whole of 
the plagues had been directed more or less against 
the deities of the land. Whether on the night of 
the Exode all these dumb idols were included in 
one sweeping act of destruction, Holy Scripture 
does not explicitly declare. Comparing however 
Exod. xii. 12 with Num. xxxiii. 4, we may fairly 
conclude such to have been the case. " The Jewish • 
Doctors," says Bishop Patrick, "will have it that 
all their idols were destroyed this night. So Jona- 
than, in his Paraphrase, 4 their molten images were 
dissolved and melted down, their images of stone 
were dashed in pieces, their images made of earth 
were crumbled into bits, and their wooden ones 
reduced to ashes;' of the truth of this," continues 
Bishop Patrick, " we cannot be assured, though we 
meet with it, not only in Pirke Eliezer, cap. 48, but 
in the author of Dibre hajamim, &c, or, the Life 
and Death of Moses, whose words are these : — 4 All 
the first-born both of man and beast were smitten, 
the images also and pictures destroyed/ &c. 4 Ar- 
tapanus also in Eusebius saith, that most of their 
temples were destroyed by an earthquake V " Be 
this as it may, the fear of Pharaoh was but short- 
lived. When it was told the king that the people 
fled, " the heart of Pharaoh and of his servants was 



4 Patrick's Com., Exod. xii. 12. 



168 



THE CATACLYSM. 



[part 1. 



turned against the people, and they said, Why have 
we done this, that we have let Israel go from serving 
us ? .... And he took six hundred chosen 
chariots, and all the chariots of Egypt, and captains 
over every one of them, .... and the Egyptians 
pursued after them, all the horses and chariots of 
Pharaoh, and his horsemen and his army, and over- 
took them, encamping hy the sea beside Pi-hahiroth, 
before Baal-zephon." 

On referring to Taylor's edition of Calmet we 
read: — "Baal-zephon or Beel-sephon, the idol or 
possession of the north, from Baal, idol, or posses- 
sion, and tyephon, the north : otherwise hidden, or 
secret, from tsaphan, the hidden idol, or the idol 
of the watch-tower : otherwise, possessor of the 
north, or the watch-tower, or the secret." Bryant 
says, " Baal-zephon was probably a place of worship 
assigned for the use of mariners, where stood the 
statue of some serpentine deity, the supposed guar- 
dian of those seas. The children of Israel may 
have been particularly directed towards this part of 
the coast, that they might see another proof of the 
futility of such worship." "Nothing could more 
tend to wean the Israelites from their fondness for 
Egyptian superstitions, than God's showing his 
superiority over all their deities, and his judgment 
upon their votaries. This must have been the con- 
sequence, when in the morning they beheld the 
dead bodies of the Egyptians lying on the beach 



ClI. VIII.] 



THE CATACLYSM. 



169 



almost within the precincts of the idolatrous in- 
closure 5 ." 

Of Baal-zephon so little is known, that I may be 
permitted a conjecture concerning it. In venturing 
to suggest a new interpretation of the name given 
to Joseph on his elevation, Zaphnath-Paaneah, I 
conjectured that Zaphnath might be resolved into 
Z'eph on ath, i. e. Ham the Great Sun Serpent, or 
the great Hamitic Sun Serpent. Of these four ele- 
ments, three are now before us, Z' Eph on. They 
may signify the Great Sun Serpent, and Baal being 
here introduced in the place of Ath -Ham — the one 
being attributed to the deity, as the other to the 
king — the rendering will be, The Lord, the mighty 
Sun Serpent. With this agrees the observation of 
Calmet, " It is thought that Tephon or Zephon was 
an Egyptian deity from whom the city was 
named." 

5 " The poet Ezekiel, cited in Eusebius, believes Baal-zephon 
to have been a city" (Calmet). This, however, by no means 
invalidates the general opinion of his being a heathen deity. 
" The Egyptians," says Spineto, p. 366, "had the custom of 
giving to many of their towns the names of their deities, and 
even of the animals that were sacred to them." The reproof 
addressed by Jeremiah to the Jews is equally applicable to the 
Egyptians : — " According to the number of thy cities were thy 
gods, Judah ; and according to the number of the streets of 
Jerusalem have ye set up altars to that shameful thing, even 
altars to burn incense unto Baal," chap. xi. 13. The city Baal- 
zephon, then, doubtless, as was common, took its name from the 
idol which had been worshipped there. 



170 



THE CATACLYSM. 



[PART I. 



In the same article in Taylor's Calmet, we read 
in a passage from the Jerusalem Targum — in which, 
however, falsehood and truth seem strangely blended 
— " that all the statues of the Egyptian gods having 
been destroyed by the exterminating angel, Baal- 
zephon alone resisted ; whereupon the Egyptians 
conceiving great ideas of his power, redoubled their 
devotions to him. Moses observing that the people 
flocked thither in crowds, petitioned Pharaoh that 
he, too, might make a journey thither with the 
Israelites. This Pharaoh permitted ; but as they 
were employed on the shore of the Red Sea in 
gathering up the precious stones which the river 
Pison had carried into the Gihon (an exquisite in- 
stance, observes Taylor, of Rabbinical geography), 
Pharaoh surprised them, like people out of their 
senses; he sacrificed to Baal-zephon, waiting until 
the next day to attack Israel, whom he believed his 
god had delivered into his hands ; but in the mean 
time they passed the Red Sea, and escaped." 

" Some describe this deity," observes the same 
commentator, "as in shape a dog; so the Egyptians 
had their king Anubis, with a dog's head; perhaps 
signifying his vigilant eye over this place, and his 
office by barking, to give notice of an enemy's 
arrival, and to guard the coast of the Red Sea on 
that side. It is said, he was placed there principally 
to stop slaves that fled from their masters" 

This fact is not opposed to the view we have 
taken, for Anubis is the same as Anuphis, Canu- 




CH. VIII.] 



THE CATACLYSM. 



171 



phis, Cnuphis, Cneph. " He is represented," says 
Bryant, " by the Egyptians as a princely person 
with a serpent entwined round his middle, and em- 
bellished with other characteristics relating to time 
and duration, of which the serpent was an emblem 
..... and the deity was termed Can'uph from his 
serpentine representation." In this description of 
Anubis we recognise Amun-Kneph, the arch-spirit 
of evil, and find him identified with Baal-zephon ; 
and since " the Egyptians set off with heads of 
various animals particular virtues and affections," 
I think it probable that Amun-Kneph, when placed 
as the Watchman of Egypt, may have been repre- 
sented with the vigilant head of a dog, to intimate 
the danger attendant upon any attempt at escape 
from Egyptian bondage. 

The symbolism agrees also with the watchfulness 
and guardianship of the Cobra, or Sacred Serpent, 
to which I have already adverted. 

The last deadly conflict between the prophet of 
the Lord and the incarnation of the Sun Serpent, 
or rather, I should say, between Jehovah and the 
arch-spirit of evil, was now approaching. The 
children of Israel had killed the Passover, as the 
Lord commanded Moses; Pharaoh had sacrificed 
to the sole remaining object of Egyptian super- 
stition, Baal-zephon — the mighty Amun-Kneph — 
and each stood still to see the salvation of his God. 
To the eye of sense, the situation of the Israelites 
was utterly hopeless. Before them roared the sea; 



172 



THE CATACLYSM. 



[PART I. 



in their rear were arrayed the countless hosts of 
Pharaoh; on either side the everlasting hills pre- 
senting an insurmountable, impenetrable barrier. 

Then God arose to judgment, " The waters saw 
thee, O God, the waters saw thee; they were 
afraid : the depths also were troubled." " Thou 
didst divide the sea by thy strength : thou brakest 
the heads of the dragons in the waters. Thou 
brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces." " With 
the blast of thy nostrils the waters were gathered 
together, the floods stood upright as an heap, and 
the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea." 
" Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered 
them: they sank as lead in the mighty waters. 
Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods ? 
who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in 
praises, doing wonders ? " 

The question has been frequently mooted, whether 
Pharaoh himself perished with his army at the 
period of the Exode. Wilkinson decides in the 
negative, and, in maintaining his position, speaks 
doubtingly of the explicit declaration in the 136th 
Psalm: "As for Pharaoh and his host, He over- 
threw them in the Red Sea." He assumes, that 
the circumstance of the personal destruction of the 
monarch not being expressly declared, is equivalent 
to a positive assertion that he survived that awful 
catastrophe; and, having affixed such an uncertain 
value to the absence of a statement in the book of 
Exodus, he appears to feel doubt of the accuracy of 



CH. VIII.] 



THE CATACLYSM. 



173 



the Psalmist's testimony, to which I have referred. 
He conceives a discrepancy, and then feels himself 
called upon to decide between conflicting state- 
ments; when, rather, the obvious method of treat- 
ing the subject would be to say, that, whereas 
the death of the monarch is implied in the book of 
Exodus, it is definitely stated in the Psalm. 

But even such a statement would probably be 
inadequate to the real requirements of the case. 
For we read in Exod. xv. 19, that "the horse of 
Pharaoh went in with his chariots and with his 
horsemen into the sea, and the Lord brought again 
the waters of the sea upon them." And Mr. 
Forster 6 not only contends that the horse of Pha- 
raoh, placed thus in immediate contradistinction to 
Pharaoh's horsemen, would refer to the war-horse 
of the king himself, but he also states that one of 
the Sinaitic inscriptions which he has deciphered 
reads as follows : — " Fleeth the swift-loner horse 
raising both fore-feet together going at full speed 
his rider dashed to the ground. Pharaoh running 
with long strides (like) a fleet horse takes startled 
flight casting off violently (with) both hands to 
quicken (his) pace (his) helmet 7 ." 

6 One Primeval Language, vol. i. p. 79. 

7 Ibid. p. 90. Mr. Forster adduces tivo inscriptions, the one 
from the "Wady, the other from the Djebel Mokatteb, in con- 
firmation of the view which he entertains. The one is in the 
86th of Mr. Gray's Sinaitic inscriptions, of which he says " the 
deciphered inscription proved to be a record of the passage of 



174 



THE CATACLYSM. 



[PART I. 



The weight of proof then appears to rest, not 
between the conflicting testimony of the sacred 
historian and of the inspired Psalmist, but between 

the Red Sea, and of the vain attempts of Pharaoh to escape 
from the returning waters by flight on horseback." . . . . 
" The king is in the act of retreat ; his horse has just received 
the check of the rein, by which the head is thrown back, and 
the fore-legs are parted, while the hind-legs remain as yet un- 
moved. The whole action is one familiar to every horseman 
who has suddenly and violently checked his horse." — Pp. 80, 81. 
The subject of the other inscription (that of which the trans- 
lation has been supplied above) proves (says Mr. Porster) to be 
identical with that of Mr. Gray, namely, the passage of the Red 
Sea with the horse and flight of Pharaoh : — "In the inscription 
from the "Wady Mokatteb, Pharaoh was represented hiero- 
glyphically, in the act and moment of reining back his horse to 
fly. In the inscription from the Djebel Mokatteb is contained, 
at its opening, a pictorial representation of the sequel ; of the 
circumstances attending his own and his horse's flight, appa- 
rently meant to express to the eye the last vain efforts of 
despair."— Pp. 87, 88. 

The following remarks must induce us still more decidedly to 
reject the opinion of Wilkinson (Manners, i. p. 54), that " there 
is no authority in the writings of Moses for supposing that 
Pharaoh was drowned in the Red Sea." " There is the strongest 
possible authority for this supposition. The whole plan of pur- 
suing the Israelites originated in Pharaoh (Exod. xiv. 3. 5), 
who strongly blamed himself for his rash concessions : he took 
his own chariot and set out at the head of his whole army 
(ver. 6, 7), and followed the Hebrews; then God promised to 
glorify Himself ' through Pharaoh and all his hosts' (ver. 17), 
which is emphatically repeated in ver. 18. They, the Egyptian 
army, led by Pharaoh, follow the Israelites into the sea, and are 
drowned ; ' there remained not one of them.'' We believe this 



CH. VIII.] 



THE CATACLYSM. 



175 



a positive and reiterated declaration of Holy Scrip- 
ture, confirmed probably by an Israelitish record on 
the rocks of Sinai, and the assertion of the Egyp- 
tian historian. I need scarcely say that my own 
conviction is, that Pharaoh himself lost his life in 
his last mad attempt to oppose the will of Jehovah ; 
and that the priesthood of Egypt invented the after 
story of the flight to, and return from, Ethiopia, to 
conceal the humiliating fact that a great incarna- 
tion of the Sun Serpent had been defeated, and 
had perished in his contest with the God of Israel. 

Speaking of the Amenophis in whose person the 
eighteenth Dynasty* of the Pharaohs terminated, 
Osburn says, " the hieroglyphic name of him whom 

to be too clear to be mistaken ; and if Wilkinson maintains, that 
in the Song of Moses no mention is made of the king's death, 
he has overlooked chap. xv. 9, which points back to xiv. 2, ' The 
enemy said, I will pursue.' This is evidently Pharaoh, and 
none else ; and the same ' enemy ' who said this was covered 
by the waves (xv. 10). "Further, the authority of Ps. cxxxvi. 15 
is more conclusive than Wilkinson believes, if considered from 
the Hebrew text, which says distinctly ' He (Grod) drove 
TTiaraoh and his host into the Red Sea.' (The translation of 
the authorized version, ' overthrew,' is certainly too indistinct ; 
and the same verb is used in our text, ver. 27, 1^3, originally to 
shake, to throw down.) In fact, the retaliation of Divine jus- 
tice would have been very imperfect, had it not included him 
who was the source and the author of the miseries of the 
Israelites, against whom the ten plagues were chiefly directed, 
and who had by his obstinacy plunged into endless calamities 
his unfortunate subjects, who were themselves less unwilling to 
obey the command of God." — Kalisch on Exod. xiv. 28. 



176 



THE CATACLYSM. 



[PART I. 



Manetho calls Amenophis we find from the few 
monumental indications of him which remain to 
be Si — phtha. That he was the Pharaoh who 
perished with his host in the Red Sea there can 
scarcely be a doubt . . . his tomb at Biban-el- 
Malook, near Thebes, was commenced by himself 
with great magnificence, but he never lay in it. It 
was finished by a stranger and usurper of the 
throne, named Remerri. The names of Siphtha, 
and of his queen Taosor, in the first gallery of the 
tomb were covered with plaster, on which Remerri 
inscribed his own. The sarcophagus which re- 
mains in it is that of Remerri 8 ." 

On comparing this statement with the following 
extract from Kenrick, a very interesting proba- 
bility will arise. " There is," says he, " another 
name not indeed in the lists, but in the monuments, 
for which a place must be found. The tomb of 
Siphtha, in the Babel-Melook, originally exhibited 
on its walls his shield, and that of his wife, but 
they have been covered with plaster, and other 
inscriptions substituted for them. The name of the 
king who thus usurped the sepulchre of another is 
not clearly made out, owing to the number of 
characters, not phonetic, with which the shield is 
filled, but it seems to be Merir or Merira. His 
name is also on the granite sarcophagus, which re- 

8 Ancient Egypt ; her Testimony to the Truth of the Bible, 
p. 92—94. 



CH. VIII.] 



THE CATACLYSM. 



177 



mains, though broken. In the procession of Me- 
dinet-Aboo his shield follows that of Setri' Men- 
ephtha the second. We cannot therefore question his 
royal dignity." " Rosellini calls him Uerri or Re- 
merri 9 where the various shields are given. One 
of them, 116a, has the figure which in the shield of 
Menephtha is pronounced Set. p. 303. Remerri or 
Merira himself never reigned x " 

Combining the fact of his being undoubtedly 
of royal dignity, yet never having reigned, with 
the circumstance of his having been buried in 
the tomb of the king who perished in the Red Sea, 
to me the more reasonable supposition appears to 
be, not that he was an usurper, but that he was 
the first-born of Pharaoh; and, as was customary, 
the colleague of his father in the kingdom; the 
prince who fell a victim to the obstinacy of his sire, 
and perished prematurely on that dread night, 
when the destroyer passed through the land, and 
smote the first-born of the Egyptians. The idea 
that an usurper should take possession of the tomb 
of Amenophis, and merely plaster over the original 
name, in order to substitute his own, instead of re- 
placing it with new masonry, graved with his own 
title, is scarcely compatible with the inordinate 
desire of immortalizing themselves, so commonly 
entertained by the Egyptian kings. 

9 Mon. Stor. III. 2. 317, tav. xiv. 116. 
1 Kenrick's Ancient Egypt, vol. ii. p. 325. 

N 



178 



THE CATACLYSM. 



[PART I. 



We meet with an instance of a similar mode of 
proceeding, originating however in an object dia- 
metrically opposed to that by which we may sup- 
pose an usurper to have been actuated, in Dr. 
Eadie's Oriental History. He relates that the 
architect of the celebrated Pharos at Alexandria 
wishing to immortalize himself, and at the same 
time being compelled to affix the name of the king, 
and not his own, to the structure he had reared, 
graved his own name on the stone tablet designed 
to receive the inscription, and then covering it with 
plaster inscribed upon the latter the name of the 
Pharaoh. The artifice succeeded. In the course 
of time the plaster fell away, and the name of the 
architect remained perpetuated on the monument. 

This, however, could scarcely be the object of 
one who had usurped the Mausoleum of another. 
It appears to me not improbable that such an in- 
complete substitution was the result of haste; that 
the first-born of Pharaoh, dying so prematurely, 
had failed to prepare for himself a tomb, and that 
Amenophis, having perished ere the embalment of 
his son was completed, the latter was hastily placed 
in the sepulchre his father had constructed for 
himself, while his subjects, little solicitous at such 
an awful crisis of transmitting his name to pos- 
terity, were content in their despair to record his 
titles on plaster, instead of undertaking the more 
tedious process of graving them on such material 
as might ensure perpetuity. 



CH. VIII.] THE CATACLYSM. 



179 



To form an adequate estimate of the horror and 
consternation of the Egyptians at the death of their 
first-born, we must not lose sight of a very peculiar 
tenet held by this remarkable people, respecting 
the state of the body after death. We read in 
Gliddon's Otia Egyptiaca, to which I have already 
referred, that the view inculcated in their Book of 
the Dead was this : " The body when embalmed 
becomes a statue or type of Osiris, and as such an 
object of worship. The tomb then becomes a 
temple for costly offerings, made by the relations of 
the deceased to the deities, through the priestly 
guardians of the tomb. The doctrine of the state 
after death appears to have been as follows : — 
During the seventy days that elapsed between death 
and burial, it was supposed that the soul was ex- 
tinct, but as soon as mummification was completed, 
it was resuscitated. It then ascended as a hawk, 
with a human head, to the new moon, and took a 
seat in the sun's boat, and after undergoing many 
tribulations, trials, and sufferings, it arrived in the 
hall of Osiris, where it was weighed in the balance 
of truth and justice, and received its due reward 2 ." 

I annex the following extract from "Israel in 
Egypt 3 ," as depicting, in still more glowing colours, 
the state of the deceased after the completion of 
embalment, and showing consequently the great 
importance attached to the due performance of this 

2 P. 19. 3 P. 150. 

N 2 



180 



THE CATACLYSM. 



[PART I. 



skilful art of the apothecary. 44 According to the 
tenets of the Egyptian mythology, the embalment 
of the dead was the highest and noblest exercise of 
the healing art. It was the triumph over the 
grand disease to which all other ailments tended, 
and in which they terminated. The embalmer's 
duties once completed, the man was dead no longer. 
His hody, perfectly pure, shining, and beautiful 
without, and innate with divinity, reposed in its 
gorgeous temple, the consecrated image of a god, 
worshipped, and imparting blessings. His soul, 
alternately performing acts of worship to the gods, of 
prowess against their enemies, and reposing in the 
Elysian fields, on the banks of the celestial Nile 
(the course of the sun in heaven), awaited, never- 
theless, with impatience, the revolution of the cycle 
of years ; after which it would return, bearing life 
and breath to its former tenement. Then the re- 
suscitated man would step forth from his tomb, 
once more to dwell in his beloved Egypt. Heavily 
as it is encumbered with coarse symbols, and 
mythic absurdities, the fable betrays, nevertheless, 
the deep conviction, which possessed the minds of 
its inventors, that man was not made to die, neither 
the image of God, impressed upon his external 
form, to see corruption." 

If such were the popular belief in Egypt with 
regard to mummification, how surpassingly terrible 
must have been the infliction of that awful scourge, 
which swept away at one fell swoop the first-born 




CH. VIII.] 



THE CATACLYSM. 



181 



of her sons. How significant the words of Scrip- 
ture : " On the morrow after the Passover the chil- 
dren of Israel went out with an high hand in the 
sight of all the Egyptians, for the Egyptians 
buried all their first-born which the Lord had 
smitten among them." So vast a destruction must, 
in the great majority of cases, have rendered the 
protracted operation of embalment impossible. 
Those they had best loved they buried u out of 
their sight" in heaps, with the bitter reflection 
that they were consigning them to utter annihila- 
tion. And this agonizing conviction must have 
acquired redoubled force when, after the lapse of a 
few short days, they beheld the flower and strength 
of the army, their late boast and glory, putrefying 
on the shores of the Red Sea! 

While touching on the death of the first-born, 
I cannot refrain from directing the attention of the 
reader to a singular coincidence between the re- 
cords of sacred and profane history. We find in 
the second commandment the following remarkable 
denunciation : — " I the Lord thy God am a jealous 
God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the 
children unto the third and fourth generation." 
The peculiarity of this expression is difficult of 
explanation until we turn to the Chronicles of 
Egypt, when its singular fitness bursts upon us in 
the most unexpected manner. The sin of the king, 
who knew not Joseph, seems to have consisted in 
ignoring the God of Israel, and recurring to that 



182 



THE CATACLYSM. 



[PART I. 



ancient system of idolatry from which Egypt had 
been rescued by the teaching of the Patriarch. 
Now, that royal pervert is very generally supposed 
to have been the grandfather of the Pharaoh who 
was drowned in the Eed Sea. The third genera- 
tion of that impious monarch had, only a few weeks 
previous to the promulgation of the law, been over- 
whelmed in the depths of the sea, and the fourth 
had perished when the first-born of the Egyptians 
were destroyed. How pregnant with meaning to 
the Israelitish people these awful threatenings of 
Jehovah, when so signal an illustration of them had 
thus recently been enacted before their eyes. 

Lastly, should Mr. Forster's position be correct, 
that the latter portion of Wilkinson's plate, No. 76, 
represents, not, as Sir Gardner thinks, "the cere- 
mony performed at the coronation of a king," but 
in its earlier scenes the triumphant aggressions, 
and in the later ones the obsequies, of Amenophis, 
whom the historiographer extols for his conquests 
in Ethiopia, while silent as to the manner of his 
death, I am reluctant to admit that this ceremonial 
followed on the return of his victorious army to 
Thebes, but am inclined to think that it took place 
subsequently to his overthrow in the Red Sea. Mr. 
Forster asserts it to be a funeral, not in reality, but 
in effigy. And why ? The body lay buried in the 
vasty deep. Ramesses Sesostris built Medinet- 
Aboo, that last expiring effort of Egyptian great- 
ness; and in that palace, according to Mr. Forster^ 



CH. VITI.] 



THE CATACLYSM, 



183 



is depicted the mournful ceremony of bearing the 
image of Pharaoh Amenophis, father of Harnesses 
Sesostris, to the tomb. What are we to gather 
from this ? Clearly, that Harnesses Sesostris having 
expelled the Hycsos, who are supposed to have again 
invaded Egypt during his infant sojourn in Ethiopia, 
and, anxious to rescue from oblivion the memory of 
the father from whom he derived his succession to 
the throne, ordered the various conquests he had 
achieved to be elaborately represented, and, passing 
over the disgraceful circumstances attending his 
death, — for " defeat was infamy," — caused the effigy 
of his parent to be brought to Medinet-Aboo, and 
such features only of that event as suited his purpose 
to be sculptured on its walls. If this be the true 
interpretation, the last splendid monument of ancient 
Egypt gives the Egyptian version of the history of 
the mighty monarch, who closed the period of her 
transcendent renown, 



184 



THE BRAZEN SERPENT. 



[PART I. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE BRAZEN SERPENT. 

In connexion with the subject before us, the account 
given in the Book of Numbers of the elevation of 
the Brazen Serpent in the wilderness imperatively 
demands our attention. 

Long before taking the view of the Worship of 
the Serpent advocated in these pages, I had felt the 
difficulty involved in the supposition that the Brazen 
Serpent in the wilderness was a type of Christ. 
The serpent being so invariably employed in Scrip- 
ture as the peculiar symbol of the arch-spirit of 
evil, I could not persuade myself that the history 
here adverted to really presented so singular an 
exception to the general rule. I felt convinced that 
the type must be one of circumstance, not of person; 
a symbol of an act to be performed, not of the agent 
by whom that act was to be performed ; and that, 
instead of regarding the Brazen Serpent as a type 
of the person of our Blessed Lord, we should be 
taking a more correct view of the subject by con- 
templating the impalement of the one as a mode 



CH. IX.] 



THE BRAZEN SERPENT. 



185 



adopted by the Holy Spirit to foreshadow the cru- 
cifixion of the other. I need scarcely say that, 
entertaining the view I now do of the blasphemous 
position occupied by the Serpent in the mythological 
system of Egypt, — a system, moreover, with which 
the Jewish people, during their protracted sojourn 

in the land, had become so conversant, and in 

. . . 

favour of which their predilections were even now 

so strongly enlisted — the idea, that that accursed 
reptile should have been selected by Almighty God 
as a personal type of Christ, seems to me next to an 
impossibility. 

That I am supported in this impression by the 
opinions of learned men, the following extracts will 
abundantly prove. Bishop Patrick, commenting on 
the declaration of our Blessed Lord to Nicodemus, 
" As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, 
even so must the Son of man be lifted up, that who- 
soever belie veth in him should not perish, but have 
eternal life," says:— "Where He does not compare 
Himself to the Brazen Serpent (for what likeness can 
there be found between the serpent and the Seed of 
the woman ; or how should light be foreshadowed by 
darkness ? as Dr. Jackson speaks), but He compares 
the lifting up of this serpent on the pole, with the 
lifting up, or crucifixion on the cross; for so He 
Himself expresses his death, and the manner of it l , 
4 And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw 



John xii. 32. 



186 



THE BRAZEN SERPENT. 



[PART I. 



all men unto me.' " And again, more strongly : 
" This Brazen Serpent, put upon a pole, was not a 
figure of Christ, but of the old serpent himself (the 
devil) as wounded, bruised, and dead, by the lifting 
up of Christ upon the cross, where He entirely dis- 
armed him of all his power to hurt us 2 ." 

Dr. Adam Clarke remarks on the same passage : 
"The Brazen Serpent was certainly no type of 
Jesus Christ, but from our Lord's speech we may 
learn, 1st, that as the serpent was lifted up on the 
pole or Ensign, so Jesus Christ was lifted up on 
the cross ; 2ndly, that, as the Israelites were to 
look at the Brazen Serpent, so sinners must look to 
Christ for salvation ; Brdly, that, as God provided 
no other remedy than this looking for the wounded 
Israelites, so He has provided no other way of salva- 
tion than faith in the blood of his Son ; 4thly, that, 
as he who looked at the Brazen Serpent was cured 
and did live, so he that belie veth on the Lord Jesus 
Christ shall not perish, but have eternal life ; 5thly, 
that, as neither the serpent, nor looking at it, but 
the invisible power of God healed the people, so 
neither the cross of Christ, nor his merely being 
crucified, but the pardon He has bought by his blood, 
communicated by the powerful energy of his Spirit, 
saves the souls of men. May not all these things 
be plainly seen in the circumstances of this trans- 
action, without making the serpent a type of Jesus 



' Com. Numb. xxi. 9, 



CH. IX.] 



THE BRAZEN SERPENT. 



187 



Christ (the most exceptionable that could possibly 
be chosen), and running the parallel, as some have 
done, through ten or a dozen particulars 3 ? " 

Let us examine this history, fresh as we are from 
the contemplation of the form which idolatry as- 
sumed in the land of Ham. 

1. That the Brazen Serpent, which Moses was 
commanded to make, was so fashioned as to repre- 
sent it as impaled, can scarcely admit of a doubt. 
Even if we regard the serpent as a type of the 
person of Christ, it follows of necessity that, as such, 
it should be exhibited under circumstances analo- 
gous to those, in which the antitype should Himself 
be placed. But whether the type were personal or 

* " I cannot understand/' says the author of " The Proto- 
plast," "how it is that so many persons see, or think they see, 
in the Brazen Serpent, a type of Christ. True it is that the 
world, rejecting Him, counted Him ' as a worm and no man but 
that God should select the fiery serpent, the acknowledged type 
of evil, to represent the pure and holy One of God, elsewhere 
described as ' a Lamb without blemish and without spot,' ap- 
pears to me inconceivable." 

And then, after showing grounds for the view which he enter- 
tains, the author, speaking of the children of Israel burning 
incense to the Brazen Serpent in the days of Hezekiah, says : — - 
" How remarkable is this phase in Israel's history ! This way- 
ward people, losing sight altogether of the spiritual meaning 
God designed to teach, giving themselves up to an idolatry of 
the sign, while they disregarded the thing signified, fell into so 
great a snare as actually to worship the Devil, to pay homage to 
that very accursed thing, which God intended to represent the 
enemy of souls." 



188 



THE BRAZEN SERPENT. 



[part r. 



circumstantial only, if Christ were to suffer and die, 
the figure to which He referred, as a fit emblem of 
his suffering, must have been represented as in a 
state of suffering or death also. It is very certain 
that such was the meaning attached by the Jews to 
the expression " lifted up." Jesus said, " And I, if 
I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men 
unto me. This he said, signifying what death he 
should die." That the Jews immediately realized 
the idea intended to be conveyed, — diametrically 
opposed as it was to all their national prejudices, — 
is evident from their answer : " We have heard out 
of the law that Christ abideth for ever; and how 
sayest thou, The Son of man must be lifted up 4 ? " 
The idea is still more forcibly expressed chap. viii. 
28 : " When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then 
shall ye know that I am he." These words imply 
not only the death of our Saviour, presently to be 
accomplished, but that that death should be one of 
violence, and inflicted by the hand of his country- 
men. In both these instances, the particular signi- 
ficance attached to the expression " lifted up," must 
have been derived from the prior elevation of the 
impaled or crucified serpent in the wilderness 5 . 

2. Opposed as was the impalement of the serpent 
to the religion of Amun-Kneph, — and nothing could 

4 John xii. 32—34. 

5 I say impaled or crucified, for " the pole on which the ser- 
pent was raised was by some of the Fathers held to be a forked 
pole, analogous to the cross." See "Whitby, John iii. 



CH. IX.] THE BRAZEN SERPENT. 



189 



be more antagonistic than the blasphemous motto 
of the Pharaohs, " The serpent stands erect," and 
the state of collapse in which the words of our 
Saviour suppose the Brazen Serpent to have been 
represented, — yet, strange to say, we possess a draw- 
ing, copied from the ancient tablets of Egypt, in 
which a serpent is thus depicted. On turning to 
Mr. Forster's Volume on Egypt*, our attention is 
arrested by the representation of a woman piercing 
a serpent's head. The position in which the 
artist has placed the serpent is very peculiar; it 
presents the form of a yoke. We can scarcely fail 
to recognise here a reference to God's judgment on 
the serpent, and a fitting illustration of the woman, 
through the medium of her Seed, delivering man- 
kind from the bondage of Satan. 

I have supposed that a tablet representing the 
Temptation and the Fall was executed during the 
time that Joseph exercised such unbounded in- 
fluence over the people of the land. It may be 
thought probable that the above representation of 
the subjugation of the serpent had its origin at the 
same period, that it was sculptured during the 
interval when the religion of the God of Israel 
prevailed over that of the serpent, and formed one 
of a series of delineations designed to point out to 
the Egyptians the real position occupied by Satan 
in the history of the world, and the everlasting 



6 P. 183. 



190 



THE BRAZEN SERPENT. 



[PART I. 



destruction to which he would be eventually con- 
signed. 

When we reflect that the picture of a woman in 
the act of piercing the serpent's head, has been 
found among the hieroglyphics of Egypt, and re- 
member, moreover, (supposing its existence at the 
time,) how fully cognizant the Israelites, from their 
long sojourn in the land, must have been of a 
delineation, which so singularly agreed with their 
own peculiar religious creed and was so diame- 
trically opposed to that of their adversaries, we can 
scarcely but connect the idea thus embodied with 
the doctrine taught through the medium of the im- 
paled Serpent in the wilderness, and recognise in 
both the restoration of the ancient and divine 
theory, in opposition to that which formed so pro- 
minent a feature in the religious system prevailing 
in the land of Ham. 

If, — notwithstanding the argument derived from 
the words of our Saviour, which require that the 
position of the Serpent should be assimilated to 
that of the Redeemer, — it should still be urged that 
the impalement of the Serpent is an unwarranted 
assumption, inasmuch as the command recorded in 
Sacred Writ — " Make thee a fiery serpent, and set 
it upon a pole " — is couched in general terms ; it 
may be replied that, granting Moses to have re- 
ceived no more specific directions than those re- 
corded in the Bible, — the position in which the 
upraised reptile should be represented being left to 



CH. IX.] 



THE BRAZEN SERPENT. 



191 



his own discretion, — this identical picture might 
influence the choice of the Hebrew Lawgiver in the 
execution of his design, by causing an impaled ser- 
pent to be the very image which would most readily 
present itself to his mind. 

The argument we are pursuing derives additional 
force from a consideration of the particular sin, 
which drew down upon the children of Israel the 
plague of serpents. It will be remembered that, 
during the forty years' sojourn in the wilderness, 
the constant desire of the rebellious Israelites was, 
to return to the land of their captivity. " Where- 
fore," said they, "hath the Lord brought us into 
this land, to fall by the sword, that our wives and 
our children should be a prey ? were it not better 
for us to return into Egypt f Let us make a captain, 
and let us return into Egypt 1 . 11 At the termina- 
tion of the forty years' sojourn, such was still the 
ever-recurring thought, for the plague of serpents 
was the last manifestation of Divine Power con- 
nected with the events of the Exode. Nay, at this 
very period, when the term of their wanderings 
was drawing to a close, and the time fast approach- 
ing when they should enter into possession of the 
promised land, the desire to return into Egypt 
seems to have been both more vehemently, and 
more blasphemously expressed. " The people 
spake against God, and against Moses." " So for- 



7 Numb. xiv. 3, 4. 



192 



THE BRAZEN SERPENT. 



[PART I. 



getful " were they " of their duty as to charge God 
Himself with ill-conduct ; whereas their fathers 
were wont only to murmur against Moses and 
Aaron 8 ." 

Possibly, we do not sufficiently consider all that 
is implied in this fearful rebellion on the part of 
Israel. It was a preference of the land of bondage 
to that of promise; a rejection of God, notwith- 
standing the stupendous miracles He had wrought 
for their deliverance, and the recognition and adop- 
tion of the worship of that malignant being who 
had been so signally overthrown in his contest with 
the Omnipotent. For them the plagues of Egypt, 
the cataclysm at the Red Sea, the terrors of Sinai, 
the subsequent miraculous preservation in the 
desert were all in vain. " Their eyes were after 
their fathers' idols." In their madness they pre- 
ferred Amun-Kneph to Jehovah, and the regal 
incarnation of the Solar Serpent to the guidance of 
Moses, the servant of God. 

How perfect was the adaptation of their punish- 
ment to the offence of which they had been guilty ! 
" The Lord sent fiery serpents (Nacashim Sera- 
phim) among the people, and they bit the people ; 
and much people of Israel died." 

" The Se Ra F, Seraphim," says Mr. Gliddon 9 , 
" were serpents surrounded with solar disks like the 

8 Bp. Patrick. 

9 Egyptian Archaeology, p. 96. 



CH. IX.] 



THE BRAZEN SERPENT. 



193 



Ursei of Egyptian sculpture, while the Se Ra F, 
like a thousand others in Scripture, has besides a 
double meaning, apparent and occult." Shall I 
then be too presumptuous in venturing to translate 
the much-disputed terms, " Nacashim Seraphim," by 
" Solar Serpents," of which those winged serpents 
of Mythology were the figurative, and the sacred 
cobra the living representatives ? The sacred symbol 
of Egypt, the cherished object of the idolatrous 
worship of the Israelites, was made the instrument 
of their punishment, to remind them of the sufferings 
they had endured while subject to Egyptian tyranny. 
God sent the serpent's tooth, — a fit memento of the 
serpent's sway. They were compelled to avow their 
abhorrence of the very creature they had venerated 
as divine, to confess themselves powerless in its 
coils, and to call upon that God, whom they had so 
lately despised and insulted, to rescue them from 
the deity they had elected in his stead. 

Viewed under this aspect, the remedy was sig- 
nificant in the extreme. " The Lord said unto 
Moses, Make thee a fiery (solar ?) serpent, and set 
it on a pole ; and it shall come to pass, that every 
one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall 
live." By the antidote provided, the thoughts of 
the tortured Israelite were forcibly thrown back 
upon the fundamental verities of revelation ; the 
blasphemous conceit of Egypt was disavowed, and 
Faith re-established upon its legitimate basis; the 
history of the Fall assumed once more its due pro- 

o 



194 



THE BRAZEN SERPENT. 



[PART I. 



portions; and the baneful influence exercised by 
the Serpent over the human race, was manifested 
in all its malignity. And, whereas the exaltation 
of the Serpent had been the foundation on which 
the faith of the apostate Israelite had rested, so, 
life or death was made conditional upon his ac- 
quiescence in its abasement, and contingent upon the 
recognition of the relative positions of God, man, 
and the tempter. Thus, the poison of asps found 
its effectual antidote in the acknowledgment of 
Him who should come to destroy the works of 
the devil; God's repentant people looked forward 
to the future triumph of their Redeemer, confessed 
Amun-Kneph to be a lying vanity, and, penitent 
and believing, passed from their sojourn in the 
i wilderness to the land of promise — the type of that 
u rest which remaineth to the people of God." 

Of this signal miracle in the history of the 
Jewish Church our Saviour takes advantage, to 
unveil to Nicodemus " the things concerning him- 
self." He had discoursed of man's regeneration, 
of which the emancipation of the ancient people of 
God from Egyptian bondage was a type and shadow, 
and, thence passing on to the means by which 
that regeneration was to be effected, He fixed upon 
the peculiar situation in which the Israelites had 
beheld the serpent, as an exemplification and fore- 
shadowing of those awful circumstances under which 
his disciples should behold Himself. He declared, 
moreover, that, as the situations should be similar, 



CH. IX.] 



THE BRAZEN SERPENT. 



195 



so also should be the effect ; that, as they who, with 
believing hearts, beheld the typical destruction 
of Satan, were healed of the Serpent's bite, so 
they who, with the eye of faith, should look upon 
Him, whose crucifixion was to effect this mighty 
victory, should be delivered from the strength of 
sin, and sting of death. The expectation of the 
Jews had been fixed upon a glorious and triumphant 
Saviour, and they rejected with indignation the 
idea of his suffering. Our Lord declared that 
" Christ must suffer, and so enter into his glory." 
While confirming their expectation that Satan's 
overthrow would be life everlasting, He insisted 
upon the fact, that " by death he must destroy him 
that had the power of death." Such appears to 
me to be the correct view of the Brazen Serpent, 
as connected with Christ, — To regard Moses as 
the authorized type of Christ, and the impaled 
serpent, to which he pointed, as the pledge of 
the power and victory of Christ. 

The view we are taking of the Brazen Serpent 
may help to throw light upon an obscure passage in 
St. Stephen's defence before the Jewish Sanhedrim 1 , 
where it will be observed that two Tabernacles are 
spoken of, — the Tabernacle of witness in the wilder- 
ness, and the tabernacle of Moloch. Concerning 
the former, made according to the heavenly pattern 



1 See Acts vii. 43, 44. 4(5. 

o 2 



196 



THE BRAZEN SERPENT. 



[part I. 



seen by Moses in the Mount, we have suggested 2 
that it was fashioned as a memorial of the flame of 
fire, the cherubim, and the tabernacle of sacrifice, 
at the eastern gate of Eden, instituted to meet the 
religious necessities of man consequent upon the 
Fall. Was the second a shrine connected with that 
worship to which the Jews had become so perti- 
naciously addicted during their sojourn in Egypt ? 
St. Stephen seems to intimate as much when, 
speaking of the lively oracles which Moses received 
to give unto Israel, he says : — " Their fathers would 
not obey him, but thrust him from them, and in 
their hearts turned back again to Egypt, saying 
unto Aaron, Make us gods to go before us : for as 
for this Moses, which brought us out of the land of 
Egypt, we wot not what is become of him." So 
early did they take occasion to rebel against the 
Divine authority, and seek to return, if not, as yet, 
to the land, at least to the worship and ceremonial, 
of Egypt. The former view is taken by Dr. Adam 
Clarke, who observes : — " They insisted on having 
an object of religious worship made for them, as they 
intended under its direction to return into Egypt. 11 
And this was no transient desire, but a constant and 
passionate yearning, which clung to them during the 
whole period of their pilgrimage, as is testified by 
St. Stephen : " ye house of Israel, have ye offered 



2 See chap. i. p. 19. 



CH. IX.] 



THE BKAZEN SERPENT. 



197 



to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty 
years in the wilderness ? Yea, ye took up the taber- 
nacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan, 
figures which ye made to worship them 3 ." 

Moloch, indeed, is spoken of in Scripture as " the 
abomination of the children of Ammon." That the 
worship of this deity, however, even if it originated 
in that country, was not there learned by the 
Israelites, is clear from the fact that the adoration 
of the idol was established among them almost im- 
mediately on their quitting Egypt and entering the 
wilderness. 

What, then, would be the probable attributes of 
this deity, connected as he was with Egyptian asso- 
ciations ? 

1st. " Moloch," says Harcourt, " is the same 
as Melek, a king; so much so, that Arias Mon- 
tanus has rendered it in this place c your king V " 
Assuming this statement to be correct, Egypt being 
the land to which the hearts of the Israelites 
" turned back," the monarch of Egypt, under some 
aspect or other, must have been the king whom 

3 "It is certain," says Dr. A. Clarke, "that the Israelites 
did offer various sacrifices to God while in the wilderness, and 
it is certain that they scarcely ever did it with an upright heart. 
They were idolatrous, either in heart or act, in almost all their 
religious services. These were, therefore, so very imperfect 
that they were counted for nothing in the sight of Grod. Acts 
vii. 42." With these remarks the passage in Amos from which 
the quotation is made exactly agrees. Amos v. 25, 26. 

4 Doctrine of the Deluge, vol. i. p. 161, note. 



198 



THE BRAZEN SERPENT. 



[PART I. 



they had enshrined — Pharaoh; not, indeed, in his 
regal or political character, but as the earthly 
head and representative, nay, more, as the incarna- 
tion of the dread spirit of that religious system, 
which, notwithstanding the rigours of Egyptian 
bondage, seems to have taken such deep root in 
their affections. 

It is true that the idol, which at the urgent 
solicitation of the Israelites Aaron fashioned, 
was not a serpent, but a calf; but the final 
object of their worship was probably the same 
deity under a different symbol. For Apis 5 , after 
whose similitude the golden calf is supposed to have 
been moulded, was a type of Osiris, of whom each 
living Pharaoh was held to be the earthly repre- 
sentative. It was then the worship of Osiris which 
the Israelites affected : — Osiris, formed by Kneph 6 , 
the arch- spirit of evil, and from him, according to 
the Egyptian theory, deriving the vast influence 
which he exercised over the human race. In con- 
firmation of this statement, it may be observed that 
whereas Osiris was typified by a bull, the Rabbins 
assure us that the idol Moloch had the head of a 
calf 7 . 

5 " These symbolical animals (the sacred bulls) of Egypt are 
by many writers spoken of as vituli, or calves : and Herodotus 
treating of Apis, mentions him as 6 ixoa^oQ b Aitiq KaXeojievog : 
the steer called Apis." — Bryant, vol. iii. p. 295. 

6 See chap. iii. p. 66. 

7 See Calmet, voce Moloch. 



CH. IX.] 



THE BRAZEN SERPENT. 



199 



2ndly. With regard to the god Remphan, on 
turning to the book of the Prophet Amos, an im- 
portant difference will be observed between the 
passage as it stands in our version, (which is a trans- 
lation from the original Hebrew,) and the same 
passage as quoted by St. Stephen. Whereas the 
Martyr uses the word "Remphan," the term em- 
ployed by the Prophet is " Chiun." The fact is, 
St. Stephen quotes from the Septuagint, and it has 
been asserted by Salmasius and Kircher that Kiion 
is Saturn, and that his star is called Keiran among 
the Persians and Arabians, and that Remphan, or 
Rephan, signified the same among the Egyptians. 
They add, moreover, that the Seventy, writing in 
Egypt, changed the word Chiun into Remphan, 
because it had the same signification 8 . 

The former portion of this assertion is confirmed 
by the fact that by the Copts 9 , the descendants of 
the ancient Egyptians, the planet Saturn is called 
Rephan at the present day 1 . With regard to the 
latter, it should be observed that in the Septuagint 

8 See Calmet, voce Chiun. 

" In the Desatu, which professes to contain the sentiments 
of the Prophets of Persia, including those of Zoroaster, anterior 
to the time of Alexander the Great," Saturn is called Keiwan. 
See Fragments to Calmet, DII. vol. iv. p. 5. See Harcourt's 
Doct. of Deluge, vol. ii. p. 218. 

9 "JNota Cophtilas vetusta nomina pertinacissime retinent." 
Bochart's Geog. Sac. 1. i. c. i. Quoted in Harcourt's Doct. of 
Deluge, vol. i. p. 159. 

1 Calmet, voce Remphan, and Adam Clarke, Acts vii. 



200 



THE BKAZEN SERPENT. [PART I. 



the word Remphan being employed as an exponent 
of the term Chiun, the Holy Spirit, speaking by St. 
Stephen, has sanctioned that definition, by causing 
his servant to quote from that translation rather 
than from the Hebrew text. 

Let us now consider the term etymologically. 
The modes of writing it are various. " The Alex- 
andrian copy reads Raiphan ; some copies read 
Raphan ; and so the Arabic version ; others Rephan ; 
the Syriac version reads Rephon ; and the Ethiopic 
version Rephom 2 ." " Some of the best manuscripts 
have 4 Rephan V " 

The antecedents in this chapter, all directing our 
researches to Egypt, coupled with the view which 
has been taken in the preceding portions of this 
volume, can result but in one resolution of the term. 
Ra, a king, or taken adjectively, royal; Eph, a ser- 
pent; An, a contraction of Ain, a fountain; Ra- 
eph-ain, R'epha'n, the fountain of the royal Solar 
Serpent. The term, then, would seem to stand 
in contradistinction to Jehovah, " the fountain of 
living waters and to represent the fountain of 

2 Gill's Com., Acts vii. 43. 

3 Dr. Adam Clarke, in loco. 

4 See Jeremiah, chap. ii. 13, compared with ver. 18. Com- 
menting on the expression in Jeremiah, chap. ii. 18, "And 
now what hast thon to do in the way of Egypt, to drink the 
waters of Sihor ? " Dr. Blayney observes nearly as follows : — 
" At ver. 13 it is said that the people had ' forsaken Jehovah, 
the fountain of living waters by a like figure they are here 
reproved for proceeding, after the manner of the Egyptians, . . 



CH. IX.] THE BRAZEN SERPENT. 



201 



Egyptian power, that old Serpent called the Devil, 
the daring rival of the fountain of Israel, whose 
" goings forth have been from of old, from ever- 
lasting 5 ." 

Whatever differences may exist among learned 
men on other points respecting the terms Chiun 
and Remphan, they are almost unanimous in viewing 
them as titles of the planet Saturn ; and indeed 
Moloch also has been viewed by many under a 
similar aspect 6 . 

It should be here remarked, that whereas Eze- 
kiel, chap. xxix. 3, makes Leviathan the type of 
Pharaoh, thereby designating, according to general 
opinion, the Crocodile, so the terrestrial symbol of 
the Egyptian god 7 Seb, or Sebek, (from whom some 
of the Pharaohs affected to derive their descent and 
inspiration 8 ,) was the Crocodile, while the celestial 
representation of this god was the planet Saturn. It 
will be observed, then, that the Sacred Serpent and 
the Crocodile were joint emblems of the Pharaoh. 
Why ? Because each in its form presented a nega- 
tion to the history of the Fall, furnishing thereby a 
natural approximation to the supralapsarian Ser- 

' to drink of the waters of their river ;' that is, to have recourse 
for help to the gods, on whom this nation placed their depend- 
ence. Sihor is a name given to the Nile, Isa. xxiii. 3," &c. 
5 Micah v. 2. 6 See Calmet. 

7 See Osburn's Monumental Egypt, vol. i. p. 373. 

8 Ibid. vol. ii. pp. 141. 161. 



202 



THE BRAZEN SERPENT. [PART I. 



pent of Paradise. Hence probably the four-footed 
Dragon of Pagan Mythology. 

3rdly. The ancient name of Saturn was Phainon 9 , 
which title readily resolves itself into elements 
exactly corresponding with those we have discovered 
in the word Rephan. Eph, the serpent; Ain, a 
fountain ; On, the sun ; Ephainon, 'Phainon, the 
fountain of the Solar Serpent ; the syllable indi- 
cating royalty or divinity, being, in the one case, 
the prefix, in the other, the suffix. And this result 
tends to justify us in regarding the syllable "an," 
in Rephan, as a contraction of " ain," a fountain, as 
it reduces the two titles of the planet to elements 
either identical, or of a like signification. And 
indeed in the word Raiphan, for so, as we have seen, 
the title stands in the Alexandrian copy, we find 
the letter "i" hovering about the word, although 
not in the position which the foregoing etymology 
would assign to it. 

On the whole, possibly, we may conclude that the 
tabernacle of Moloch was the shrine 1 of Osiris, and 
of Pharaoh, his earthly regal representative; and 

9 Harcourt, vol. i. p. 160. 

1 Speaking of the procession of sacred shrines in Egypt, "Wil- 
kinson remarks : — " It was usual to carry the statue of the prin- 
cipal Deity, in whose honour the procession took place, together 
with that of the king, and the figures of his ancestors, borne in 
the same manner on men's shoulders." — Popular Account of 
the Ancient Egyptians, vol. i. p. 269. See also p. 268. 



CH. IX.] 



THE BRAZEN SERPENT. 



203 



that the star of the god Remphan was the sidereal 
representative of that arch-spirit of evil, of whom 
Osiris and his successive delegates 2 on the throne 
of Egypt were supposed to be the incarnations and 
vicegerents. 

Whatever opinion may be formed of the result of 
this difficult investigation, on which, but for its 
connexion with the subsequent portion of this work, 
I should not have touched, it has, at all events, 
thus much to recommend it : it developes a con- 
nexion between the clauses of the verse before us, 
and an opposition to the religious system of Israel, 
which, so far as I am aware, has been hitherto un- 
perceived. Pharaoh, the representative of Osiris, 
sought after by the rebellious Israelites in oppo- 
sition to Moses, the type of Christ; Remphan, the 
Solar Serpent, worshipped as a deity in opposition 
to the Angel of the burning bush, which was Christ. 
What, then, more antagonistic than the tabernacle 
of Moloch, and the tabernacle of Moses ; — the star 
of Remphan, and the star of Jacob ! And it may 
be added that the fact presented to us of the trust 
of Israel in the shadow of Egypt, diametrically 
opposed as it was to belief in the promised Redemp- 
tion through the Seed of the woman, gives ad- 
ditional force to the exhortation of St. Paul to his 

2 At the coronation of the king, the crook and flagelluni of 
Osiris, — the emblems of Dominion and Majesty, — were given 
him with the asp-formed fillet, to be bound upon his head. See 
Wilkinson, ibid. p. 276. 



204 THE BRAZEN SERPENT. 

Corinthian converts, whom he admonishes, by the 
example of the Israelites, not to " tempt Christ, as 
some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of 
serpents." 



END OF THE EIRST PART. 



PART II. 



CHAPTER I. 

BABYLON AND EGYPT. 

An opinion seems prevalent among those who 
have devoted themselves to the study of the pro- 
phetic writings, that Papal Rome, widely as she 
may have departed from the faith once delivered 
to the saints, does not, in her present state, con- 
stitute that power which the Church is led to look 
for as the last development of Antichrist; that 
whatever her corruptions, (and truly their name is 
Legion,) yet, forasmuch as she has not relinquished 
her profession of belief in the Divinity and Huma- 
nity of our Lord, she assumes not that dread posi- 
tion of which the chief characteristics appear to be 
an utter denial of, and determined opposition to, 
the fundamental truths of Christianity. In her 
present form we may recognise her, indeed, as the 



206 



BABYLON AND EGYPT. 



[PART II. 



woman whose name is Babylon, but not as the 
consummation of the last apostasy. 

But on Rome Papal, as the Babylon of the Re- 
velations, it is not my intention professedly to 
dwell. The subject has recently been so ably 
treated by Dr. Christopher Wordsworth that any 
attempt on my part to enlarge upon his argument 
would be worse than futile. 

With reference, however, to a sermon on the 
Man of Sin — supplementary to his interesting 
lectures on the Apocalypse — I would beg permis- 
sion to make a few observations. 

" It is taken for granted," says Dr. Wordsworth, 
"that the power or person called Antichrist, or 
the Antichrist, by St. John " (in his Epistles) " and 
there described by him as rejecting the doctrine of 
the incarnation, and denying the Father and the 
Son, is the same power, or person, as that described 
by St. John in the Book of Revelations, but this," 
adds he, "is a gratuitous supposition, and for my 
own part, I am persuaded that it is a very erroneous 
one." Again, he says, " This is clear, that St. 
John in his two Epistles is describing a power, or 
person, avowedly Infidel, and though the world 
has seen — especially in the last and present cen- 
turies — many forerunners and shadowings forth of 
this infidel power, or person, whom St. John calls 
4 the Antichrist,' yet it seems probable that this 
power, or person, has not yet been fully revealed in 



CH. I.] 



BABYLON AND EGYPT. 



207 



the gigantic stature of his fiend-like enormity. 
How soon he may appear God only knows." " If a 
conjecture may be permitted on this mysterious 
subject, it seems probable that the full revelation 
of the Antichrist of St. John's Epistles belongs to 
a time subsequent to the fall of Papal Rome \ and 
also subsequent to the destruction of the Beast and 
false Prophet 2 (?), and coincides with the open 
war of Satan against the Church, which is to be 
consummated by Satan's fall and final overthrow 3 ." 
"Let, then, the words of St. John in his Epistles 
be kept apart, as they ought to be. Let us not in- 
termingle them with other expressions of Scrip- 
ture, to which they have no affinity, lest by such a 
confusion we involve ourselves in error, and in- 
troduce perplexity into the Word of God." 

Nothing can be more clear than the distinction 
drawn by Dr. Wordsworth between Papal Rome 
and Antichrist ; and the striking conclusion at 
which he arrives, if received with certain limita- 
tions, is probably a correct one. I venture to say, 
with certain limitations, because if, as he elsewhere 
observes, " this Divine Book opens to us a view, as 
in an unbroken avenue, of the whole interval be- 
tween Christ's first advent as a Saviour, and his 
second advent as our Judge," if "in Patmos, St. 

1 Eev. xvi. 19 ; xviii. 1. 24. 

3 See Lectures, pp. 441. 444. 1st ed. Eev. xix. 20. 
3 Eev. xx. 8. 10. 



208 BABYLON AND EGYPT. [PART II. 

John saw a vision of the Church's history, from his 
own day to the consummation of all things," we 
surely cannot dissociate the Papacy from Anti- 
christ, and then maintain that the history of the 
latter is excluded from these mystic pages. We 
cannot imagine that a book, which sets before us a 
symbolic sketch of the fortunes of the Christian 
Church, from the commencement of her state mili- 
tant to the close of her triumphant career, should 
leave unnoticed the character, the deeds, and the 
fate of one with whose history that of the Church 
is so fearfully interwoven, or even dismiss with a 
merely passing allusion the most powerful and in- 
veterate enemy with which she has to contend in 
her earthly warfare. To apply to this subject Dr. 
Wordsworth's own argument concerning Rome : 
"the Apocalypse being a Divine, and therefore a 
perfect history, such an omission seems to be in- 
credible." 

I consequently incline to the opinion, that St. 
John does in the Apocalypse enter far more largely 
into the history of Antichrist, than Dr. Words- 
worth seems disposed to admit, and that the reason 
this learned writer does not discern the Antichrist 
of St. John's Epistles in his prophetical writings is 
simply this : in the former, the Apostle speaks 
plainly, in the latter in parables ; and Dr. Words- 
worth has not recognised as identical, a power, 
sketched in the one case in undisguised form and 
unclouded colouring, in the other veiled under the 



CH. I.] 



BABYLON AND EGYPT. 



209 



shadowy mists of prophetic symbolism. Cede the 
point that the Apocalypse " discloses the history of 
the Church even to the day of doom," and it follows, 
almost of necessity, that the history of Antichrist 
must be latent somewhere under its mysterious 
imagery. One of these two results seems therefore 
inevitable : either the power spoken of by St. John 
in his Epistles is the same with that occupying so 
prominent a position in the Apocalypse; or the 
Apostle, while in the Revelation portraying so 
vividly the one power, has not failed to furnish us 
also with certain indications of the other. 

In accepting the latter conclusion, we imme- 
diately find ourselves engaged in this inquiry : — in 
what part of the Apocalyptic visions is the history 
of Antichrist to be found ? The following extract 
from "Dalton's Commentary on the New Testa- 
ment " # will show in what portion of them this 
power was sought for in ancient times. In his ex- 
position of the 13th chapter of the Revelation, he 
says, " Modern commentators have applied the 
whole subject to the Papacy, supposing that the 
first Beast has had its fulfilment in the political 
power of Papal Rome, and the second in the reli- 
gious system of that Church. Ancient commen- 
tators looked upon this prophecy as the last mani- 
festation of Antichrist, in his political and religious 
aspect. They believed that Antichrist, in his 
principles, has been at work from the beginning, 
but that at the end of this dispensation, God will 

P 



210 



BABYLON AND EGYPT. [PART II. 



permit this evil to appear in a personal shape, and 
that one great individual, called ' the Wicked 
One,' 'the Son of Perdition,' or as here, 'the 
Beast,' will gather together the enemies of God, to 
persecute the Church, oppose the restoration of 
the Jews, and to aim at driving all true religion 
from the Church." 

Dr. Maitland gives the following able summary 
of the difference of opinion concerning Antichrist, 
which exists between the early Christian Church 
and the Protestant Church of the present day. 
" The common doctrine of the Christian Church, 
grounded on plain declarations of Scripture, has 
always been, that at some time or another an 
apostasy must take place, promoted or headed by 
some person or power who is variously designated 
in Scripture as 4 the Little Horn,' ' the Beast,' 
' the Man of Sin,' ' the Son of Perdition,' and 
' the Wicked One ' — and who has been commonly 
known in the Church under the title of Anti- 
christ. 

" Thus far the early Church, and the Protestant 
Church of the present day are agreed; but, when 
they come to particulars, they differ on three very 
important points. 

" It is impossible where so many writers, with so 
many varieties of opinion, are concerned to speak 
with perfect accuracy; but I believe that the doc- 
trines which I am about to state as those of the 
Early Church, were held by all Christian writers 



CH. I.] 



BABYLON AND EGYPT. 



211 



for at least twelve centuries ; and that those which 
I ascribe to the Protestant Church, have been 
maintained by most Protestant divines, and are 
held by most Protestant writers on Prophecy in 
the present day. The three points of difference 
are these : — 

" (1) As to the nature of the Apostasy. 

" The Early Church conceived of it as an actual 
departure from Christianity. Not merely a falling 
off from the purity of the Christian Faith by pro- 
fessed Christians; but as a renunciation of that 
Faith, and a falling away from all profession of it, 
into open, blasphemous, and persecuting idolatry. 

" The Protestant Church understands the Apos- 
tasy to mean the impure Christianity of a corrupt 
part of the Christian Church; or a hypocritical 
profession of Christianity, by a body falsely pre- 
tending to be a Christian Church. 

" (2) As to the duration of the Apostasy. 

u The Early Church expected that the Apostasy 
would not take place until a few years before the 
advent of our Lord to judgment; and that the per- 
secution arising out of the Apostasy would not last 
more than three years and a half. 

" The Protestant Church maintains that the 
Apostasy has long since taken place ; and has al- 
ready existed during many centuries. 

" (3) As to the leader or head of the Apostasy. 

" The Early Church expected an individual Anti- 
christ, who should be an infidel blasphemer, giving 

p 2 



212 



BABYLON AND EGYPT. 



[PART II. 



honour to no God, suffering no religious worship 
to be paid to any but himself, and requiring that 
worship from all men on pain of death. 

" The Protestant Church supposes a succession 
of individuals, or bodies of men, each forming the 
Antichrist of his own period, being an integral 
part of an Antichrist to be composed of, and com- 
pleted in, the whole series ; and that the individual 
(when that is the hypothesis) or leader (when a 
Church is supposed) has been, and is, a Christian 
Bishop, professing to be the Vicar of Christ on 
earth, and to act in his name and for his glory. 
It is needless to say that these opinions are widely 
different V 7 

Dr. Maitland has spoken only of the Presentists 
and the Futurists; on the Preterists he has not 
touched. The following extract from a pamphlet, 
entitled " A Quietus for the Coming Struggle," 
professing to give " a brief sketch of the exegetical 
history of the two beasts/' may suffice to supply the 
deficiency : — " The earliest writers of whom we have 
any account understood them to symbolize Pagan 
Rome under the Ccesars, the former denoting spe- 
cially the first persecutor Nero, whom they expected 
to revive, returning from the East across the Eu- 
phrates, as the Antichrist of Paul and John. This 
appears, more or less clearly, from Works con tempo - 



4 An Attempt to elucidate the Prophecies concerning Anti- 
christ, pp. 1 — 3. 



CII. I.] 



BABYLON AND EGYPT. 



213 



raneous, or nearly so, with the Apocalypse ; such as 
the Ascension of Isaiah (rv.), Book of Enoch 
(cxxxix.), perhaps 2 Esdras (xi.), Sibyl. Or. (B. iv. 
v. viii.), probably Test. xii. Patr. Hernias, Apocr. 
Apoca. of John, Barnabas, Irenseus, &c. Hippolytus 
and Victorinus interpreted the two beasts to be 
Pagan Rome and Antichrist. When long time 
had passed away, and no Nero appeared, expositors 
seem to have had recourse to the widest gene- 
ralizing. According to Tichonius, the whore and 
the beast were the world and its evil propensities. 
According to Primasius, the beast represented the 
wicked in general. So Bede. Subsequently, more 
definiteness of exposition was adopted, and germs of 
the present popular system of exposition began to 
show themselves. One or other beast meant a 
future Antichrist, an individual, in the opinion of 
Andreas, Arethas, Ausbert, Joachim, Albert, T. 
Aquinas, Beringaud, and others." 

In adopting the opinion set forth by Dr. Mait- 
land with regard to the future manifestation of 
Antichrist, I propose to institute an inquiry which 
will, I hope, result in the conviction that the view 
advocated by him is the true one. 

If we apply ourselves to the study of the Apoca- 
lypse with thoughts of Egypt in our mind, and note 
what have been the views and impressions enter- 
tained by the generality of commentators with 
respect to her, we shall scarcely deem that sufficient 
attention has been directed to the annals of a king- 



214 



BABYLON AND EGYPT. [PART II. 



dom, to which such frequent reference is made by 
the inspired Seer; and whose history must, con- 
sequently, form so important an element in the 
deciphering of his mystic symbolism. 

While so many volumes have been written replete 
with inquiry concerning the character of mystic 
Babylon, not one, to my knowledge, has been de- 
voted to the unfolding of those spiritual realities 
veiled under the emblem of Egypt. Although the 
former is mentioned by name more frequently than 
the latter, Egypt is alluded to in the symbolism of 
the Apocalypse, and appears to contribute towards 
it more largely than does Babylon. In a word, 
Egypt, if I may so express myself, forms more or 
less an essential part of the woof of that sublime 
vision. 

From overlooking this important fact, commen- 
tators, content with pointing out certain references 
in this mystic Book to that portion of Egyptian 
history which was so intimately connected with the 
earlier fortunes of the chosen people of God, have 
failed to obtain as deep an insight into the solemn 
truths enunciated in this prophetic volume, as these 
passages seem to me calculated to afford. 

But, it will be asked : Are not Babylon and 
Egypt joint types of one and the same great feature 
in the history of the Church ? Even were this the 
case, fresh light should be brought to bear on the 
adumbrated verities of Revelation, by the closer 
examination of a presumed synonym. But I believe 



CH. I.] 



BABYLON AND EGYPT. 



215 



that hereafter I shall be in a position to prove that 
Egypt and Babylon are not employed as joint types 
of one stupendous fact, but represent two distinct 
and awful realities to be evolved, in the course of 
the Church's eventful history. I do not affirm that 
they may not typify the same reality under different 
aspects, and at different periods of time ; but, to go 
no further at present, I contend that the marked 
contrast, displayed in their conduct towards the 
children of Israel and the God of Israel, forbids us 
to regard them as spiritual synonyms. 

With respect to the earlier period of their exist- 
ence, indeed, we are without the necessary data by 
which to institute a comparison ; for while Holy 
Scripture points to Babel as the Mother of Harlots 
and abominations of the earth, on the infant state 
of Egypt she is totally silent. Here, however, we 
shall not, probably, be far wrong in regarding them 
as emulating each other in the paths of error — the 
Aholah and Aholibah of their degrading Idolatries. 

If we trace the course of action pursued by each 
through a better known period of their history, we 
shall find them remarkable less for harmony than 
for antithesis. Test them in their relations to 
God's people, and what is the result ? 

The children of Israel were welcomed into Egypt 
by a grateful monarch and his court as the brethren 
of Zaphnath-Paaueah, the u Saviour of the Age." 
Reduced, in process of time, to a state of abject 
slavery, the benefits conferred by Joseph forgotten, 



216 



BABYLON AND EGYPT. [PART II. 



they were thrust out of the land, fugitives from the 
intolerable persecution and oppression of the very 
nation they had been instrumental in saving. 

They were carried to Babylon as prisoners of 
war, many of them captured in open revolt against 
the government to which they owed allegiance, 
faithless to the oath they had sworn to their con- 
queror. They quitted it, freed from the bonds of 
slavery, laden with honour, and wealth, and blessing, 
— their captivity remembered but as a dream. 

They went down into Egypt, rejoicing in the 
possession of the knowledge of the one True God, 
and secure under His immediate protection; they 
left it, incorrigibly addicted to idolatrous prac- 
tices. 

They entered Babylon deeply polluted with the 
abominations of idolatry; they left it so confirmed 
in the knowledge of Jehovah, that, amid all their 
after transgressions, they never again relapsed into 
the worship of strange gods. 

Egypt was to Israel at the first a providential 
protection, Babylon a providential punishment ; yet 
Egypt became to them eventually a curse, Babylon 
a blessing. 

Egypt welcomed the Hebrew Patriarch as its 
Saviour, and imposed on his descendants the galling 
yoke of servitude. 

The Jewish people were led captive into Baby- 
lon, on account of their sins, but Cyrus, their de- 
liverer, caused their captivity to return, " saying to 



CH. I.] 



BABYLON AND EGYPT. 



217 



Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built ; and to the temple, 
Thy foundation shall be laid." 

If we attempt to draw a parallel between Nebu- 
chadnezzar or Belshazzar and the monarch of the 
Exode, the impiety of the two former pales in com- 
parison with the stubborn obduracy of the latter. 
Thus, when Daniel interpreted Nebuchadnezzar's 
dream, the king answered, "Of a truth it is, your 
God is a God of gods, and a Lord of lords," &c. 
When " the three children " came forth unhurt 
from the midst of the burning fiery furnace, Nebu- 
chadnezzar made a decree that every people, na- 
tion, and language, which should speak any thing 
amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach and 
Abednego, should be cut in pieces, and their 
houses be made a dunghill; " because," he con- 
cludes, " there is no other God that can deliver after 
this sort. 11 Again, in his subsequent proclama- 
tion, Nebuchadnezzar gives glory to God, and con- 
fesses his infinite power and universal dominion. 
" / thought it good to shew the signs and wonders 
that the high God hath wrought toward me. How 
great are his signs ! and how mighty are his won- 
ders ! his kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and 
his dominion is from generation to generation. . . . 
Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and 
honour the King of heaven, all whose works are 
truth, and his ways judgment ; and those who 

WALK IN PRIDE HE IS ABLE TO ABASE." In truth 

the character of this Eastern despot is not without 



218 



BABYLON AND EGYPT. 



[part II. 



some bright traits; wilful, yet open to conviction; 
exulting in his power, yet ready to humble himself 
before the majesty of Jehovah ; though nurtured in 
error, not insensible to the appeals of truth; full of 
fury, yet willing to make ample reparation; his 
heart lifted up with pride, yet in his abasement 
extolling the power which had smitten him, and 
openly avowing his subjection to the God of Heaven. 
Indeed, the tenor of the last recorded edict of his 
reign may seem to justify the conclusion 5 that this 
once arrogant and idolatrous monarch died " a true 
convert" to the worship of the one True God. "A 
ma?i , s heart was given him ! " 

But what is the bearing of the king of Egypt 
under analogous circumstances ? To the first inti- 
mation of the will of God by Moses and Aaron, 
Pharaoh replies : " Who is the Lord, that I should 
obey his voice to let Israel go ? I know not the 
Lord, neither will I let Israel go." And even the 
stupendous miracles wrought by them, in attesta- 
tion of their Divine mission, failed to turn him 
from his purpose. He remained callous to the 
solemn appeal. Each successive manifestation of 
the majesty and power of Jehovah, served but to ex- 
hibit in still darker colours his indomitable pride. 
When the infliction of the third plague had ex- 
torted from the awe-struck magicians the confes- 
sion, " This is the finger of God," " Pharaoh's 
heart was hardened, and he hearkened not unto 
5 See Dr. A. Clarke's Com. on Dan. iv. 37. 



CH. I.] 



BABYLON AND EGYPT. 



219 



them, as the Lord had said." And whereas Nebu- 
chadnezzar acknowledged that " those who walk in 
pride He is able to abase," Pharaoh's mad oppo- 
sition to the will of Jehovah impelled him onward 
in the path of destruction, until he perished misera- 
bly, — an awful example of the unconquerable stub- 
bornness of an abandoned human heart. 

Compare him again with Belshazzar, him who 
dared to profane the sacred vessels of the temple, 
by introducing them into the orgies of idolatry, 
with which crowning act of impiety terminated at 
once his life, and the dynasty which his grandfather 
had so magnificently reared. When he beheld 
the fingers of a man's hand writing over against 
the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall, then 
his " countenance was changed, and his thoughts 
troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were 
loosed, and his knees smote one against another." 
And after Daniel had interpreted the writing, al- 
beit the prophet had foretold nothing but evil, 
Belshazzar commanded, " and they clothed Daniel 
with scarlet, and put a chain of gold about his 
neck, and made proclamation concerning him, that 
he should be the third ruler in the kingdom." 
Can any thing be more dissimilar than the conduct 
of Pharaoh ? The cowering form of the terrified 
Assyrian monarch stands out in strong contrast 
with the lofty bearing of that wilful king who knew 
no fear; the faithful fulfilment of the promise of 
the one, with the negation of all promises by him 



220 



BABYLON AND EGYPT. 



[PART II. 



whose spirit rose to more daring heights of rebel- 
lion, as each awful visitation of the Almighty was 
successively withdrawn. Thrice he rebelled against 
the reiterated command of God, encouraged by 
the enchantments of his magicians ; thrice from the 
promptings of his own obdurate heart, after their 
solemn protest, " This is the finger of God." Then 
followed the fearful curse of judicial blindness ; 
that he had hardened his own heart was his sin; 
that God hardened it was his punishment; he re- 
fused to glorify God by his obedience, and thus 
provoked God to glorify Himself by his rebellion fi . 

It may be urged that the parallel should be drawn 
between Israel in Egypt and Israel in Babylon, 
in which case the conversion of Nebuchadnezzar 
would correspond with that of the Pharaoh whose 
dreams Joseph interpreted, — and Belshazzar with 
the monarch of the Exode. This, indeed, renders 
the parallelism more harmonious, yet the contrast 
between the terror and remorse of Belshazzar and 
the hardened infidelity of the king of Egypt re- 
mains as striking as before. From whichever point 
the question is viewed, it must be conceded that 
Egypt proved far more rebellious and impervious 
to conviction than Babylon. The latter presents 
but an appearance of vacillation and timidity, when 
compared with Egypt ; she alone displays an in- 
flexible obduracy, which no demonstration of Divine 



6 See Bp. Patrick. 



CIL I.] 



BABYLON AND EGYPT. 



221 



power could abate, no amount of judgment over- 
come. 

The non-coincidence of symbolism, as applied to 
Egypt and Babylon, is, I believe, capable of proof 
by another and more direct line of argument. It 
is generally allowed that the " scarlet coloured 
beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven 
heads and ten horns," on which the woman whose 
name is Babylon is seated 7 , is the same as "the 
beast rising out of the sea 8 , having seven heads 
and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and 
upon his heads the name of blasphemy 9 ." Now 
this latter beast is, as I shall presently endeavour 
to prove, a symbol of Egypt. If the proof be ade- 
quate, Babylon and Egypt, although closely allied, 
cannot be synonymous ; the one surviving after the 
other has been consigned to destruction. For after 
an angel had proclaimed, "Babylon is fallen, is 
fallen," &C. 1 ; we read (verse 9, and following), 
" Another angel," as Dr. Wordsworth has forcibly 
put it, follows, "saying with a loud voice, If any 
man worship the beast and his image y and receive 
his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the 
same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God," 

7 Kev. xvii. 3. 

8 The beast rises from the sea, the woman on the beast 
sitteth on many waters. 

9 Eev. xiii. 1. 
1 Rev. xiv. 8. 



222 



BABYLON AND EGYPT, 



[PART II. 



&c. Here then the worship of the beast him- 
self seems to be anticipated, after he shall have 
dashed the harlot from the seat she had so long 
occupied. Babylon and Egypt cannot then be 
synonyms of the same dread reality. Should they 
be recognised as distinct in their symbolic character, 
as we have seen them to be in their history, their 
connexion with God's chosen people, the shades of 
their transgression, and their position in the Apoca- 
lypse, in what light, it may be asked, are they 
respectively to be viewed ? The name of Babylon 
has been firmly riveted on the forehead of papal 
Rome ; I hope to prove that we are justified in brand- 
ing that of Egypt upon the brow of Antichrist. 

Superstition and Antichristianity, of which mystic 
Babylon and Egypt appear to me to be the symbols, 
although alike deadly enemies to the truths of 
Revelation, comprise elements the most antago- 
nistic. Superstition believes every thing, infidelity 
nothing ; superstition receives " profane and old 
wives' fables " as verities of religion ; infidelity re- 
jects, as " cunningly devised fables," the word of the 
living God. Superstition erects a statue to Truth, 
and decks it with the trappings of a harlot; in- 
fidelity exclaims, " Down with her, down with her, 
even to the ground." Infidelity is as the axe at the 
root of the tree of Life, to cut it down ; superstition 
as the parasitical plant, which engrafts itself upon 
her branches and steals away her vitality. 



CH. I.] 



BABYLON AND EGYPT. 



223 



The antithetical character of these two fearful 
opponents to the truth of the Gospel, is well defined 
by Mr. Riddell. 

" It is commonly said," he observes 2 , " that 
" Superstition consists in believing too much, and 
" Infidelity in believing too little. This statement, 
" however, is not precise and accurate. The ques- 
" tion is not one of more or less, but it relates to 
" two different habits of mind,— the habit of not 
" believing, and the habit of believing. Infidelity is 
" the habit of not believing religious truth, suffi- 
" ciently declared and propounded. Superstition 
" is the habit of believing that which seems to be 
" religious truth, but is unsupported by sufficient 
" evidence; and it often happens that the same 
" mind which refuses to believe the Gospel, is yet 
" strong in its belief of that which is not the 
" Gospel. Subjectively speaking, and therefore 
" most accurately on a point like this, infidelity is 
" a refusing to believe where there is reason for 
" belief ; superstition is believing without reason ; 
" and hence, practically, with regard to religious 
" truth, infidelity is the habit of not religiously 
" believing what God has revealed ; superstition 
" the habit of religiously believing what He has not 
" revealed. The difference lies, not in the presence 
" or absence of faith, but in the quality of that 
" faith, whether as reasonable or unreasonable, as 



2 Bampton Lect., 1852, pp. 133—136. 218. 



224 



BABYLON AND EGYPT. [PART II. 



" founded or not founded upon sufficient grounds, 
" and as having for its object what is true or what 
" is false. Religious faith is fundamentally a rea- 
" sonable belief of revealed truth ; infidelity is an 
" unreasonable disbelief of this truth, and rejection 
" of its evidence; superstition is an unreasonable 
" belief of that which is mistaken for truth con- 
" cerning the nature of God and the invisible world, 
" our relations to these unseen objects, and the 
" duties which spring out of these relations. In 
" superstition there is faith unwarranted or mis- 
" placed ; and hence the heathen rites and cere- 
u monies of worship were superstitious, not when 
" they were observed by unbelieving men, but when 
u they were observed in faith, without which, as 
" one of the ancients says (Plutarch, in his treatise 
u on Superstition), they were utterly sapless and 

" devoid of meaning This is the funda- 

" mental characteristic of superstition, that in 
" matters relating to religion and the unseen world, 
" it believes fictions in the place of truth, and its 
" observances are practised without adequate autho- 
u rity. It matters not precisely what that creed 
u and those observances are, but what they are not. 
u And accordingly, Tertullian may be said to have 
44 written with far greater insight into the nature 
44 of superstition than Augustine, when he de- 
44 nounced certain observances as superstitious, not 
" on account of any direct conformity with heathen 
" idolatry, or as connected with any supposed inter- 



CH. I.] 



BABYLON AND EGYPT. 



225 



" course with demons, but simply on the ground of 
" a want of command or warrant by our Lord or 
" His Apostles, and thus as tending to make their 
" observers like the heathen. 

" It has been shown in general that Faith in its 
" essence, or its fundamental idea, is a reasonable 
" belief; Infidelity is unreasonable disbelief; Super- 
" station is unreasonable misbelief. Hence, there - 
" fore, Infidelity appears as the direct contradictory 
" of Christian Faith, opposed to its existence, while 
" Superstition is rather the contrary of that Faith, 
" capable of co-existing with it, but in a state of 
" antagonism, hindering its development, and op- 
" posing its beneficial operation. Infidelity is anti- 
u christian ; Superstition is unchristian ; the former 
" is more directly opposed to the Gospel, the latter 
" more indirectly. Infidelity, so far as it prevails, 
" excludes Christianity ; Superstition thwarts or 
" counteracts it." 

St. John closes the sacred volume with a solemn 
warning to either : " I testify unto every man that 
heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If 
any man shall add unto these things, God shall add 
unto him the plagues that are written in this book : 
and if any man shall take away from the words of 
the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his 
part out of the book of life, and out of the holy 
city, and from the things which are written in this 
book." 

In regarding Egypt as the type of Infidelity, 

Q 



226 



BABYLON AND EGYPT. [PAET II. 



which would seem destined to attain its full deve- 
lopment in the elevation of the Antichrist, I am 
supported, I conceive, not only by the Apocalypse, 
but by other portions of the Word of God. In the 
only part of the Revelation, for instance, where 
Egypt is designated by name, it occurs in conjunc- 
tion with " the city where our Lord was crucified.' ' 
Now, in our Saviour's day, Jerusalem certainly was 
not idolatrous, but unbelieving ; and with this, singu- 
larly agrees a remarkable passage in the 9th chapter 
of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans. To demonstrate 
to the Jewish people their then miserable condition 
in the sight of God, he adduces the awful example 
of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, leaving them to draw 
the parallel between his obdurate infidelity and 
opposition to Moses, and their own unbelief, and re- 
jection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ 3 . 

There existed, indeed, between Egypt and Israel, 
in our Saviour's time, this marked similarity, which 

3 " The Apostle refers here to the case of Pharaoh and the 
Egyptians, and to which he applies Jeremiah's parable of the 
potter, and from them to the then state of the Jews." " As the 
Jews of the Apostle's time had sinned after the similitude of 
the Egyptians, hardening their hearts, and abusing the goodness 
of God after every display of his long-suffering kindness, being 
now fitted for destruction, they were ripe for punishment ; and 
that power, which He was making Tcnown for their salvation, 
having been so long and so much abused and provoked, was 
now about to show itself in their destruction as a nation." 
— Dr. Adam Clarke on Eom. ix. 22. See also note on 
ver. 18. 



CH. I.] 



BABYLON AND EGYPT. 



227 



entirely excludes Babylon from the category; that 
whereas the latter, on every recorded occasion, 
yielded to the evidence of miracles, Egypt and 
Israel rejected the supernatural appeal ; judicial 
blindness was the consequent punishment inflicted 
on both. The reader cannot fail to recognise the 
strict parallel between the declaration of the Al- 
mighty concerning Pharaoh, " I have hardened his 
heart, and the heart of his servants 4 ," and the pas- 
sage in Isaiah 5 relating to the Israelites, " Make 
the heart of this people fat, and make their ears 
heavy, and shut their eyes ; lest they see with their 
eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with 
their heart, and convert, and be healed." 

A passage in the short Epistle of St. Jude may 
also be cited wherein Egypt is referred to as a 
type of Infidelity. " The Lord, having saved the 
people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed 
them that believed not." "Even as Sodom and 
Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, 
giving themselves over to fornication, and going 
after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, 
suffering the vengeance of eternal fire 6 ." The 
Apostle here, in illustration of God's dealings with 
those who " denied the only Lord God and our 
Lord Jesus Christ," employs a figure similar to 
that in Rev. xi. 8, already referred to : " The great 



4 Exod. x. 1. 5 Ch. vi. 10. 

c Jude 5. 7. 
Q2 



228 BABYLON AND EGYPT. [PART II. 

city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, 
where also our Lord was crucified." 

St. Peter also, alluding to the same apostasy 
which had crept into the Christian Church, de- 
scribes these false teachers and their followers as 
" denying the Lord who bought them." 

It should be observed that both the Apostles, in 
speaking of this rebellious apostasy from Chris- 
tianity, refer to the fall of Satan and his angels 
from their first estate as analogous to it. This 
comparison of the sin of Egypt with the revolt of 
Satan himself, is very important as connected with 
the subject we are considering, and justifies the 
position which has been assigned to the monarch of 
the Exode and his people, in the symbolism of the 
Apocalypse. 

I do not, however, mean to assert that infidelity 
and rebellion were confined to Pharaoh and the 
Egyptians. Far from it. The children of Israel 
themselves, in their journeyings through the wilder- 
ness, exhibited repeated and aggravated instances 
of these awful sins. Thus, St. Paul says, " What 
if some did not believe 7 f " and again, " Some 
because of unbelief could not enter into rest 8 ." 
And herein consists another parallelism between 
Moses the type and Christ the antitype. The 
infidel opposition of both Israelite and Egyptian to 
the mission of the Jewish Lawgiver finds its echo 



7 Bom. iii. 3. 



8 See Heb. iii. 16. 19. 



CH. I.] 



BABYLON AND EGYPT. 



229 



in the words of the Apostles of our Lord, " Of a 
truth against thy Holy Child Jesus, whom thou 
hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with 
the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered 
together V 

This parallelism is also implied by St. Stephen 
in his defence before the Jewish Sanhedrim; for, 
speaking of Moses, he says, " To whom our Fathers 
would not obey, but thrust him from them, and in 
their hearts turned back again into Egypt" And, 
at the conclusion of his address, he thus severely 
draws the comparison between Antimosaism and 
Antichristianity : — " Ye stiffnecked and uncircum- 
cised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy 

Ghost : as your Fathers did, so do ye They 

have slain them which showed before of the coming 
of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the 
betrayers and murderers ,0 ." 

Egypt, nevertheless, would seem to be the pre- 
eminent type of Infidelity. The Israelites were 
infidel because Egyptianized. They had been ini- 
tiated into, and had learned to dote upon Egyptian 
mysteries and customs, and when called by Moses 
from darkness to light, " in their hearts they turned 
back into Egypt." In this school they proved apt 
and ready scholars, and hence it is, I apprehend, 
that Egypt symbolizes particularly Antichristianity 
and Antichrist, and that so many allusions to her 



9 Acts iv. 27, 28. 



Acts vii. 51, 52. 



230 



BABYLON AND EGYPT. [PART II. 



and the Exode are to be met with in the Apoca- 
lypse l . 

Enough then appears on the surface, without at 
present extending the investigation, to induce us 
to regard Egypt, — that wilfully infidel nation of 
the Old Dispensation, — as the fitting type of In- 
fidelity in the New. Pursuing this train of thought, 
in either case the singular phenomenon presents 
itself of an idolatrous power yielding to the force 
of truth, attested by miraculous credentials; ad- 
hering to it for a season, and subsequently relaps- 
ing into a form of error, kindred to that from which 
it had been rescued; persevering in that error, 
with an infatuation which can scarcely be ascribed 
to aught save judicial blindness, and in this its 
infidel state receiving its final overthrow at the 
hands of a rejected God. We shall find too, pro- 
bably, in both instances, the reforming power of 
truth, having effected the end for which it was de- 
signed, in its turn, alas ! succumbing to the in- 
sidious allurements of the falsehood which it had 
vanquished, and countenancing the re-establishment 
of those very errors which it had been instrumental 
in correcting. 

I extract the following passage from " Delta on 
the Revelation," in corroboration of the view which 
has been taken in the present chapter. 

1 In the 45th Psalm, the daughter of Egypt is sometimes con- 
sidered to indicate the conversion of the Gentiles (i. e. infidels) 
to the Gospel of Christ. 



CH. I.] 



BABYLON AND EGYPT. 



231 



" The object of Satan is unaccomplished so long 
as one Christian remains on earth. His unceasing" 
endeavours have been directed to the utter extinc- 
tion of godliness. The Papal Church itself, cor- 
rupt and abominable as it is, can only be viewed 
by Satan with comparative complacency, so long as 
the divinity of Christ and the necessity of atone- 
ment are recognised in it. They prove too much 
who would make Popery the masterpiece of Satan. 
It is heathenism in which he specially delights. 
He is not content to corrupt where it is possible to 
destroy 2 ." 

The motive of Satan's unceasing endeavours is 
obvious. Divest Papal Kome of the manifold super- 
stitions in which she has enveloped herself, and you 
discover the pure Christianity of that Church, 
whose early "faith was spoken of throughout the 
whole world." Subvert the temples which Paganism 
has reared to her divinities, and, below their 
deepest foundations, you discover but the mouth 
of the bottomless pit. 

Papal Rome, indeed, enfolds the cross of Christ 
in lying vanities, but Paganism surrounds with 
varied systems of investiture the Satanic Serpent 
of Paradise. 

When we remember that the Beast dethrones 
the woman, that Egypt survives when Babylon 
shall be no more, those words of warning, with 



2 P. 159. 



232 



BABYLON AND EGYPT. [PART II. 



which Isaiah follows up his triumphant insultation 
over Babylon, may not be inapplicable at a future 
day. " Rejoice not .... because the rod of him 
that smote thee is broken : for out of the serpent's 
root shall come forth a cockatrice, and his fruit 
shall be a fiery flying serpent 3 ." 

3 Isa. xiv. 29. On this passage Mr. Scott has the following 
comment. " These verses (28 — 32) form a distinct prophecy 
which probably was delivered at another time. Uzziah had 
vanquished the Philistines (2 Chron. xxvi. 6, 7), but when he 
died, and the Jews were afterwards greatly enfeebled during 
the reign of Ahaz, and left in great difficulties at his death, 
the whole land of Philistia, and all connected with it, rejoiced. 
But it was predicted, that Hezekiah would be more terrible to 
them than Uzziah had been ; as if a serpent of a less poisonous 
nature, and less formidable, should produce a cockatrice, or a 
fiery flying serpent." 

The opinion appears general, that the expressions, the cocka- 
trice and fiery flying serpent, are spoken of Hezekiah. If so, 
it would appear that, like the Brazen Serpent applied to Christ, 
the figure is one, less of person than of effect. To the good 
Hezekiah himself, the term Cockatrice or Basilisc would seem 
peculiarly inapposite. But if (as has been supposed) the 
Philistines were descended from those shepherd kings who had 
been driven from Egypt by the early monarchs of the 18th 
dynasty, then the terms, in which the prophecy was couched, 
were singularly appropriate. For the prophet assures these 
inveterate enemies of the Israelites, that, although the death of 
Uzziah had given a temporary respite to their broken fortunes, 
a Jewish monarch should yet ascend the throne of David, who 
would, in effect, prove to them as great a scourge, as had been 
to their forefathers those mighty monarchs of Egypt, whose 
peculiar designation and badge was the Cockatrice. 



CH. I.] 



BABYLON AND EGYPT. 



233 



Thankful may we be that the Prophet directs 
our thoughts also to better things than these : that 
he speaks of a time when " dust shall be the ser- 
pent's meat 4 : " that he contemplates a day when 
" Israel shall be third with Egypt and with Assyria, 
even a blessing in the midst of the land: whom 
the Lord of Hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be 
Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my 
hands, and Israel mine inheritance V 



4 Isa. lxv. 25. 



5 Tsa. xix. 24, 25. 



234 



THE WOMAN CLOTHED 



[PART II. 



CHAPTER H. 

THE WOMAN CLOTHED WITH THE SUN. 

In order to approach more advantageously the ob- 
ject proposed in the present volume, that of throw- 
ing light upon the mystic number of the beast as 
given in the concluding verse of the 13th chapter 
of the Revelation, it is requisite to direct our 
attention to the commencement of the preceding 
chapter of that Sacred Book. 

Christianity, as well as Idolatry, has its mytho- 
logy; for mythology is a system of fables, and a 
fable is a fiction which symbolizes either a fact or a 
falsehood, a verity or a fallacy, veiled under a series 
of metaphors. Under such a form are communi- 
cated in pagan lore the elements and records of 
Heathenism; under such a form are portrayed in 
the Apocalyptic page the profundities of Chris- 
tianity, and the destinies of the Church. The dif- 
ference is less in the vehicle employed than in the 
matter conveyed ; pagan mythology presenting to 
its votaries in figurative language a system of lies ; 



CH. II.] 



WITH THE SUN. 



235 



Christian mythology, through a similar medium, 
imparting to its disciples a knowledge of Eternal 
Truth. 

Of this character are the great wonders beheld 
in Heaven, and described by St. John in the 1st 
and 3rd verses of the chapter before us : figurative 
representations of vast realities ; Christian hiero- 
glyphics, indicating with parabolic significance 
momentous verities connected with the Church of 
Christ 1 . 

Commentators on the Apocalypse are by no 
means decided whether the visions which it contains 
are to be regarded as indicating contemporaneous 
or consecutive portions of the Church's history. 
That a greater amount of proof than has hitherto 
been brought forward in favour of the former posi- 
tion might be adduced, the author fully believes ; 
the inquiry, however, is of too extended a character 
to admit of being entered upon here. It must 
suffice to observe, that members of each of the three 
leading schools of prophetic interpretation, viz. the 
Preterists, the Presentists, and the Futurists, have 
remarked that the inspired seer appears, about the 
commencement of the 12th chapter, to be carried 
back to a period antecedent to that to which the 
vision, described in the latter verses of the 11th 
chapter, had conducted him ; that he takes a retro- 
spective view, the better to prepare his readers 

1 See Rose's Parkhurst, voce ar^iaioi'. 



236 



THE WOMAN CLOTHED [PART II. 



for those portions of prophetic symbolism which 
follow. 

The question at issue is of so much importance, 
that I may be excused for pausing to cite some 
authorities on the subject. Moses Stewart, who, 
with the exception of those portions of the Apoca- 
lypse which speak of Gog and Magog, interprets it 
as a drama long ago enacted, in his opening of the 
12th chapter, says : — " The first question which 
presents itself, is : Whether the writer has here taken 
a regressive step, that is, whether, instead of de- 
scribing what is yet future, he goes back to a brief 
sketch of the past, in order the better to enter 
afterwards upon the declaration of the future. An 
attentive examination of the whole chapter will 
lead, as it seems to me, to a full persuasion that he 
has taken such a step V 

Also Albert Barnes, who regards this mystic 
book as a symbolic representation of the Church's 
history from the Apostolic Age to Christ's second 
advent to judge the world, speaking of the last verse 
of the 11th chapter, says: — "Here ends, as I 
suppose, the first series of visions referred to in the 
volume sealed with the seven seals. Chap. v. 1. At 
this point, where the division of the chapter should 
have been made, and which is properly marked in 
our common Bibles with the sign of the paragraph 
(^[), there commences a new series of visions, in- 

2 Commentary on the Apocalypse, vol. ii. p. 249. Also vol. i. 
p. 185. 



CH. II.] 



WITH THE SUN. 



237 



tended also, but in a different line, to extend down 
to the consummation of all things. The former 
series traces the history down mainly through the 
series of civil changes in the world, or the outward 
affairs which affect the destiny of the Church; the 
latter — the portion still before us — embraces the 
same period with a more direct reference to the rise 
of Antichrist, and the influence of that power in 
affecting the destiny of the Church V 

Again, Burgh, who believes the greater part of 
the Apocalyptic visions to be yet unfulfilled, speak- 
ing of chap. xii. says : — "It should be observed 
that this chapter and the next are not a continua- 
tion of the Prophecy, (strictly speaking,) but a reca- 
pitulation in part of the matter, occupied by the 
preceding chapter; . . . this appears at once from 
the fact, that the period of time assigned to chap. xi. 
is also the period in which the events of chap. xii. 
and xiii. occur 4 ." 

It will be observed, then, that Stewart and 
Barnes, although belonging to different schools, 
both imagine that the Revelation at the 12th 
chapter recurs to the first outgoings of Christianity, 
and that Burgh also supposes a retrograde move- 
ment, although his theory precludes the idea that it 
retrogresses to so early a period of the Church's 
history. 

That the earlier portion of the 12th chapter 

3 Barnes on the Revelation, p. 339. 

4 Burgh on the Book of Revelation, p. 225. 



238 



THE WOMAN CLOTHED 



[PART II. 



associates itself with a remarkable period in Egyp- 
tian history, is by no means a novel idea. Mr. 
Burgh, commenting on the words, " There appeared 
a great wonder in Heaven, a woman clothed with 
the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her 
head a crown of twelve stars," says, " Who, I ask, are 
we to understand by this description ? The general 
answer is, that it is the Christian Church, which may 
be fitly represented as encircled by light; but this 
interpretation, it strikes me, is far too general for 
so circumstantial an emblem. When I look into 
the Scriptures for an interpretation, I find no 
accurate correspondence to the emblem, except in 
the Jewish nation, and I do find one occasion upon 
which the Jewish nation is similarly described. I 
allude to one of the prophetic dreams of J oseph 5 , 
'And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it 
his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a 
dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon 
and the eleven stars made obeisance to me. And 
he told it to his father, and to his brethren; and 
his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What 
is this dream that thou hast dreamed ? Shall / 
and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to 
bow down ourselves to thee to the earth ? ' In 
this passage," continues Mr. Burgh, "the sun, 
moon, and eleven stars, (or twelve, including Joseph 
himself,) are decidedly emblematical of the Jewish 



5 Gen. xxxvii. 9. 



CH. II.] 



WITH THE SUN. 



239 



nation V But in truth, the passage in Genesis, to 
which Mr. Burgh refers, demands a yet closer ex- 
amination. Let us revert to the first dream of 
this favoured son of Jacoh. He said unto his 
brethren, " Hear, I pray you, this dream which I 
have dreamed : for, behold, we were binding sheaves 
in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood 
upright ; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, 
and made obeisance to my sheaf. And his bre- 
thren said to him, Shalt thou indeed reign over 
us, or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us?" 
Of these two dreams it will be observed that the 
second is an amplification of the first, the one fore- 
telling that his brethren merely would make their 
obeisance to Joseph, the other that his father and 
his mother also would bow down to him to the 
earth. It is remarkable that it was in Egypt 
that both these visions received their accomplish- 
ment. " The first," says Bp. Patrick, " was fulfilled 
when his brethren came for corn into Egypt, the 
second when Jacob went down into Egypt, and no 
doubt showed that respect which was due to the 
Viceroy of the country, and so did his mother (in 
law) Bilhah (for Rachel was dead), and all his 
brethren." 

The Prophecy then in Rev. xii. 1, glancing ap- 
parently at the first outgoings of the Jewish Church, 
when Jacob had received the name of Israel, and 

6 So Hales in his Chronology, vol. iii. p. 633. 



240 



THE WOMAN CLOTHED 



[PART II. 



dwelt with his sons in the promised land, carries 
us forward to the period when the aged Patriarch, 
at the invitation of Pharaoh, went down into Egypt, 
and became a stranger in the land of Ham. Surely 
if Jacob recognised in himself, his wife, and sons, 
the reality of which the sun and moon and twelve 
stars were a type and shadow, we can scarcely err, 
when met by a similar symbolism in the Apocalypse, 
if we regard the woman as an impersonation of the 
Jewish Church in the earlier periods of her history. 

Finding ourselves thus apparently on Egyptian 
soil, we shall be better prepared to estimate the 
correctness of those commentators, who, in the suc- 
ceeding portion of this chapter, have discerned a 
reference to Egyptian history. It conducts us 
evidently to that period when the palmy days of 
Israel in Egypt had been exchanged for those of 
degrading and intolerable bondage. 

Mr. Elliott, of whose admission I the more readily 
avail myself, disconnected as it is from the theory 
which he himself propounds, speaking of the Dragon 
mentioned in the 3rd verse, says, " The figure is 
primarily Egyptian, having reference to the Nile- 
dragon, or crocodile. So Ps. lxxiv. 13: 4 Thou 
brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters 
Isa. li. 9 : c Art thou not it that hath cut Pahab 7 , 

7 Qu. Is Egypt called Rabab, not from the similarity of 
the Delta to a pear, but from the two monosyllables Ea — ab, 
the Solar Serpent ? 



CH. II.] 



WITH THE SUN. 



241 



and wounded the Dragon ? ' and Ezek. xxix. 3 : 'I 
am against thee, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great 
Dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers/ are 
all written of the Egyptian anti-Israeli tish power." 
Not that the Dragon here mentioned is employed 
principally, but subordinately, to typify Pharaoh, 
king of Egypt. The main object of the symbol is 
too clearly indicated both in the 9 th verse of the 
chapter before us, and in Rev. xx. 2, to admit of a 
reasonable doubt on the subject. " The Dragon " 
says the sacred penman, u is that old serpent the 
Devil, and Satan, which deceive th the whole world." 
It is the author of evil himself, who is here em- 
bodied in that form under which he effected the 
fall of man. Pharaoh is, indeed, styled the Dragon 
of the Nile, but it is on the ground of his kingdom 
being the land of darkness, the stronghold of Satan, 
and the monarch himself his avowed impersonation 
and slave. 

The assertion of St. John that " the Dragon is 
that old serpent the Devil" would seem to throw 
light upon the obscure etymology of both these 
words, and to show that the term Dragon is em- 
ployed with singular propriety as a type of Satan, 
and also of Pharaoh, his willing instrument. The 
ancient name for the serpent in the Celtic language 
was Hak, and the worship of that reptile having 
been, as we have seen, originally derived from the 
East, it might be presumed that to this term Hak 
a kindred appellation would exist in Eastern climes. 

R 



242 



THE WOMAN CLOTHED [PART II. 



In accordance with this supposition, the writer of 
the Article upon the "Adder," in Kitto's Cyclo- 
paedia of Biblical Literature, says, that "another 
name " of that venomous reptile " varying in the 
old European tongues from ag, ach, to hag, has 
more connexion with the Semitic;" that the naja 
is " one of the Sanscrit forms of the same appella- 
tion whence we have the word hag ; and that the 
nagas of the East, the hag-worms of the West, and 
the haje have all been deified and styled agatho- 
dsemon, or good spirit." He adds, that " the most 
prominent species of the genus of which he is 
treating is the naga tripudians, Cobra di Capello, 
hooded or spectacled snake of India, venerated by 
the natives ; even by the serpent-charmers styled 
the good serpent to this day, and yet so ferocious, 
that it is one of the very few that will attack a man 
when surprised in its haunt, although it may be 
gorged with prey." From these remarks it appears 
evident that the serpent, which the above writer 
elsewhere terms the " mysterious ag 8 ," and the naja 
or Cobra di Capello, if not identical, have been 
alike objects of Pagan idolatry. 

If now we examine the origin of the term Dragon 
etymologically, it will be found to resolve itself with- 
out violence into the following elements. " De " 
(the oldChaldee prefix), "Ka — ag — on," the Royal 
Sun Serpent 9 . 

8 See article voce " Serpent." 

9 It is singular how the word Dragon has been preserved, 



CH. II.] 



WITH THE SUN. 



243 



Analogous to this seems to be the etymology 
of the word devil. The Arabic <j*jtal eblees, the 
chief of the apostate spirits, is, says Dr. Adam 
Clarke, probably corrupted from the Greek &a- 
j3oAoe, diabolos ; from which the Latin diabolus, 
the Italian diavolo, the Spanish diabolo, the French 
diable, the Irish or Celtic diabal, the Dutch duivel, 
the German teufel, the Anglo-Saxon deofal, and 
the English devil, are all derived I0 . Notwithstand- 
ing Dr. Clarke's suggestion that the original <W- 
(3o\oq comes from SiafiaWeiv, to shoot or pierce 
through, may it not fairly be inferred that the 
whole of this system of nomenclature (diabolus 
itself included) is derived from the older root, De 
— ef (or eph) — el, the Solar Serpent? and with 
this supposition the Arabic term eblees, ushered in 
by the old Chaldee prefix De, fully corresponds. 

Indeed, whether we consider the term Dragon, or 
Devil, or Amun-kneph, or Baal-zephon, or Baal- 
zeboul, or Apollyon, or Abaddon, they each and 
all seem to centre in one dread reality, — the 
arch-spirit of evil, transformed into an angel of 
light, and symbolized under the form of the Solar 
Serpent. Thus Baal-zeboul (as it is written in 
Greek) resolves itself into Baal-Z'eb'el, or if it 
with but little variation, throughout the whole of Western 
Europe. Thus, in Italian it is dragone, in French dragon, in 
Dutch draalc, in German draclie, in Irish draic or draig, in 
"Welsh draig, in Swedish drake, in Danish drage . See Web- 
ster's Diet. 

10 Note on Ps. cix. 6. 

R 2 



244 



THE WOMAN CLOTHED 



[PART II. 



be read Zeboub, then, according to the Oriental 
custom of reduplicating words to augment inten- 
sity,. Z' — eb — oub, The Serpent of serpents \ 
Thus again Apollyon, Aph — el, or eli — on, the 
Sun Serpent; Abaddon, Oub — ad — on, the Lord 
the Solar Serpent. Pursuing the inquiry still 
farther, he reappears as the Pythian Apollo of 
Grecian and Roman Mythology. "Non dubitan- 
dum est," says the learned Heinsius, " quin Pythius 
Apollo, hoc est spurcus. ille spiritus, quern Hebrsei 
Ob et Abaddon, Hellenistse ad verbum AttoXXuwvo, 
cseteri A7roAAwia dixerunt, sub hac forma qua mise- 
riam humano generi invexit primo cultus V There 
is no doubt, but that Pythius Apollo, that is, that 
wicked spirit whom the Hebrews called Ob and 
Abaddon, the Hellenistic Greeks correctly Apol- 
lyon, and others Apollo, was first worshipped under 
that form in which he brought misery to the human 
race \ 

1 So "Wilkinson speaks of Apop (Apophis) as the Great 
Snake-giant, the symbol of sin, where the syllable appears to be 
repeated with this object. Popular Account, vol. i. p. 330. 

2 Bryant, vol. ii. p. 202. 

3 The following remarks from Ennemoser's History of Magic 
may be considered interesting. 

" It is remarkable that, while the etymology of Obi has been 
sought in the names of ancient deities of Egypt, and in that of 
the serpent in the language of the West, the actual name of 
the evil deity, or devil, in the same language appears to have 
escaped attention. That name is written by Mr. Edwards, 
Obboney" (the reader will observe the etymological elements 



CH. II.] 



WITH THE SUN. 



245 



But further, I had thought, that as Satan is 
here Egyptiacally delineated, so the colour in which 

of the name 01 On, the Solar Serpent) ; " and the bearer of it 
is described as a malicious deity, the author of all evil, the in- 
flicter of perpetual diseases, and whose anger is to be appeased 
only by human sacrifices. This evil deity is the Satan of our 
own faith ; and it is the worship of Satan which, in all parts of 
the world, constitutes the essence of sorcery. If this name of 
Obloney has any relation to the Ob of Egypt, and if the Ob, 
both anciently in Egypt, and to this day in the west of Africa, 
signifies 1 a serpent,' what does this discover to our view but 
that Satan has the name of serpent among the negro nations as 
well as among those of Europe ? How it has happened that 
the serpent, which, in some systems, is the emblem of the good 
spirit, should in others be the emblem of the evil one, is a topic 
which belongs to a more extensive inquiry. This is enough 
for our present satisfaction, to remember that the profession of, 
and belief in sorcery or witchcraft, supposes the existence of 
two deities — the one the author of good, and the other the 
author of evil ; the one worshipped by good men for good 
things and good purposes, and the other by bad men for bad 
things and purposes ; and that this worship is sorcery and the 
worshippers sorcerers. 

" It will be seen that, since African charms are to prevent 
evil, and others to procure it, the first belong to the worship, 
and are derived from the power of the good spirit, and the 
second are from the opposite source. It is to be concluded, 
then, that the superstition of Obi is no other than the practice 
of and belief in the worship of Obboney, or Oboni, the evil 
deity of the Africans, the serpent of Africa and of Europe, and 
the old serpent and Satan of the Scriptures ; and that the 
witchcraft of the negroes is evidently the same with our own." 

It would appear from the preceding note, that the witchcraft 
of Africa is identical with that spoken of in Holy Scripture ; 



246 



THE WOMAN CLOTHED 



[PART II. 



he is depicted, might have reference to Egyptian 
ideas and customs ; all " de facto " rulers of Egypt, 
Persian (?), Greek, and Roman sovereigns heing, as 
Mr. Gliddon observes 4 , coloured red out of compli- 
ment, like the Autochthonous Pharaohs. But the 
original word " wppoq " (purros) is connected 
rather with the idea of fire than of vermilion, and 
would seem to present to the mind an image of the 
great dragon streaming with lurid flame from the 
deep abyss, in contradistinction to the bright efful- 
gence of the woman clothed with the sun. 

Of this great red or fiery dragon, we read that he 
had " seven heads, and ten horns, and seven crowns 
upon his heads." We have here, as I have already 
observed, a twofold symbol, allusion being made at 
once to Satan himself, and to Pharaoh his repre- 
sentative ; the former, however, being the pro- 
minent object of the vision, the latter only a sub- 
ordinate feature. I do not imagine, that, so far as 
Satan himself is concerned, we are here called upon 
to seek an explanation of the seven heads and ten 
horns in the distinctive characteristics of any 
earthly power, any more than we look for an earthly 
response to the seven horns and seven eyes of the 
Lamb in the midst of the throne. With regard to 

for the Witch of En dor, to whom Saul, when God had de- 
parted from him, sought for counsel, is in the original termed 
Ob, the woman being evidently designated by the name of the 
Evil Spirit to whose service she was professedly devoted. 
4 Otia Egyptiaca, p. 134. 



CH. II.] 



WITH THE SUN. 



247 



Pharaoh indeed the case may be different; but I 
shall have occasion hereafter to touch upon the 
seven heads and ten horns, so far as they relate to 
him, when treating of the seven-headed and ten- 
horned beast spoken of in the 13th chapter. 
At present we ought, probably, to take a more spiri- 
tual view of the subject. It should be borne in mind, 
that the number seven is a sacred mystic number 
typifying spiritual perfection, and that among all 
nations the number ten has been universally con- 
sidered indicative of completeness, from the primi- 
tive custom of counting upon the fingers to that 
number and then commencing anew \ The former 
number may therefore be regarded as a symbol of 
spiritual, the latter of earthly, perfection 6 . The 

6 To this rule, the Caribbees are said to form the sole ex- 
ception, counting with one hand only, and making their deter- 
minate period at five. See Godfrey Higgins, Anacalypsis, 
vol. i. pp. 2. 17. 

6 We find a curious illustration of this in the fact that when 
Frauce, in the awful season of her wild infidelity, bent on erasing 
from her calendar all that had been associated with religious 
belief, set aside the hebdomadal division of time, as professing 
to be of Divine appointment, she broke up her periods of days 
into decades, as the mode of computation best adapted to 
general convenience. That the measure was not original is 
rendered probable from a remark of Lipsius. He says, " Many 
of the primitive institutions of Egypt differed from those of 
Asiatic nations. The most remarkable of these differences . . . 
is the institution of the Sahhath, where the decadal week of ten 
days was substituted for the week of seven days, of which (i. e. 
the week of seven days) we find traces among the other nations 



248 



THE WOMAN CLOTHED 



[PART II. 



union of the seven crowned heads with the ten 
horns may, consequently, indicate in its widest 
sense the claim of Satan to universal dominion 
both spiritual and temporal 1 . 

A reference to Webster's dictionary will show 
that the significations of the word Dragon respond, 
not only to the commencement of the 4th verse 
of the chapter before us, but also to various other 
passages of Holy Writ, in which Satan is spoken 
of. "In Irish, drag is fire; in Welsh, dragon is a 
leader, chief, or sovereign, from dragiaw, to draw; 
in Scotch, the word signifies a paper kite, as also 
in Danish, probably from the notion of flying or 
shooting along like a fiery meteor ; in Welsh, draig 
is rendered by Owen a procreator or generating 
principle, a fiery serpent, a dragon, and the 
Supreme; and the plural dreigiau, silent light- 
nings, dreigiaw, to lighten silently. Hence I infer, 
that the word originally signified a shooting meteor 
in the atmosphere, a fiery meteor, and hence a 
fiery or flying serpent, from a root which signified 
to shoot or draw out." With these definitions 
compare such scriptural expressions as the follow- 
ing. " The prince of the power of the air." " The 
prince of this world." " The god of this world." 
u We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but 

of the earth." Einl. p. 23, &c. It would appear then that in 
Ancient Egypt also the Sabbatic institution had fallen into 
desuetude or been buried in oblivion. 

7 See Archdeacon Harrison on the Prophecies, p. 328. 



CU. II.] 



WITH THE SUN. 



249 



against principalities, against powers, against the 
rulers of the darkness of this world, against spi- 
ritual wickedness in high places." " I saw Satan as 
lightning fall from Heaven." " Behold, I give unto 
you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and 
over all the power of the enemy 8 ." Now turn to 
Rev. xii. 9. " He (Satan) was cast out into the 
earth, and his angels were cast out with him." 
" His tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, 
and did cast them to the earth." This precipitation 
of Satan and his myrmidons from Heaven on the 
assumption of the man-child, seems to be represented 
under the figure of a fiery meteor or glowing comet, 
disturbing by the power of attraction the divine laws 
of the planetary system, drawing away the stars of 
Heaven from the appointed courses of their several 
orbits, and organizing them as satellites of his own 
sphere, till, finally dashed down with him from the 
eccentric pathway he had usurped, they are "re- 
served in everlasting chains under darkness unto the 
judgment of the great day." 

But is this the whole signification of the Pro- 
phecy ? I think not. Its scope appears to me to 
partake of a more extensive character. The 
imagery is peculiar, as symbolizing, not only a 
spiritual reality, but an earthly type and antitype, 
pointing no less to the early Jewish than to the 



8 John xiv. 30 ; xvi. 11. Eph. vi. 12. Luke x. 18, 19. 



250 



THE WOMAN CLOTHED [PART II. 



early Christian Church ; no less to Israel after the 
flesh, than to the Jerusalem above, which is the 
mother of us all. 

Let us direct our attention to this second point. 

That Moses was an eminent type of Christ we 
are not permitted to doubt. The Hebrew Law- 
giver himself thus predicts the future parallelism : 
— " The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a 
Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, 
like unto me; 11 — a prophecy of which St. Peter 
recognises the fulfilment in the person of the 
Messiah 9 . This parallelism between the devoted 
servant of God and the only-begotten of the Father 
commences in infancy. The destruction of all the 
Hebrew male infants at the instigation of Pharaoh, 
finds its response in the command of Herod to slay 
all the young children in the ill-fated village of 
Bethlehem. The escape of Moses from the machi- 
nations of the one tyrant, answers to the deliverance 
of the Holy Child Jesus from the murderous designs 
of the other. The flight into Egypt, and subsequent 
return of the latter to Judsea, on the death of 
Herod, constitute another striking point of resem- 
blance, rendering the words of Hosea, " Out of 
Egypt have I called my son," as applied by the 
Evangelist to Christ, pertinent alike to the 
founders and followers of the fleshly and spiritual 



9 Acts iii. 22. 



CH. II.] 



WITH THE SUN. 



251 



Israel. As a mediator, Moses stood alone in the 
annals of the Jewish people, until the manifestation 
of Him who is the Mediator of a better covenant 
established on better promises. " There arose not a 
Prophet like unto Moses" until " God sent forth His 
Son born of a woman." The faithfulness of the 
former "as a servant," over all his house, finds its 
response in the faithfulness of " Christ as a Son 
over His own house." The stupendous miracles 
performed by the Hebrew deliverer stand unrivalled, 
save by the mighty works of Him who cast out 
devils by the finger of God. The manna, so mira- 
culously supplied during the forty years' wanderings 
in the wilderness, was a type of that true bread 
which came down from Heaven that a man might 
eat thereof and not die. The Shepherd's staff 
(pajSSoc), or rod of Moses, the instrument at once of 
deliverance and guidance to God's people, and of 
utter destruction to His enemies, finds its antitype 
in that of the Good Shepherd, who knows his sheep, 
and lays down his life for his flock, but will bruise 
his enemies with a rod of iron (pa/3Sw <nS?7|0£w), and 
break them in pieces like a potter's vessel. The 
leader of the Church by predilection responds to 
Him who is Head of the Church universal; the 
king in Jeshurun (i. e. king of the upright or 
righteous) to Him of whom it is sung: " Just and 
true are thy ways, thou King of saints." The legis- 
lative office of either may serve to complete the 
parallelism; the law, contained in ordinances pro- 



252 



THE WOMAN CLOTHED 



[PART II. 



mulgated by Moses, responding to the law of Faith, 
established by Jesus Christ K 

Under the figure of the man-child, both type and 
antitype appear to be symbolized ; our attention is 
directed simultaneously to " the man Moses," and 
the God-man Jesus Christ. That a reference is 
made to the latter almost all commentators are 
agreed, however sceptical some may be as to the 
correctness of the former position. Moses Stewart 
makes the following remarks on this point : — 

" We come now to the second catastrophe. Here, 
too, as at the first, is a proem or prologue. .... 
It is a symbolical representation of the Logos becom- 
ing incarnate. From the body of the Church he 
comes, as to his fleshly or mortal nature. Here, as 
often in the Old Testament, and many times in the 
New, the Church is represented under the emblem 
of a woman. It is not the Church, merely as 
Jewish, certainly not the Church as Christian, 
(which was subsequent), but the Church as beloved 
of God, and always the object of His care and love, 
which is symbolized as the mother of the 'Man-child, 
who is to rule the nations with an iron sceptre : 
Like the bride in Psalm xlv. 13, she is adorned 
with great splendour. Sun, moon, and stars unite 
in shedding their glory around her. She is intro- 

1 See Dr. Jortin's remarks on Ecclesiastical History, where lie 
adduces thirty-nine points of resemblance between Moses and 
the Messiah. 

2 Rev. sii. 5. 



CH. II.] 



WITH THE SUN. 



253 



duced as being pregnant with the child who is to 
be the great King, and Satan is presented as her 
violent and persecuting enemy. He stands ready 
to devour the child at its birth. But the woman is 
protected by a watchful providence, and flees into 
the wilderness, where she finds an asylum from 
Satan's vengeance The history of Mary, the 
cruel designs of Herod when he massacred the 
children at Bethlehem, and the flight of the infant 
Saviour's parents into Egypt through the wilder- 
ness, must all have been floating before the mind of 
the writer when he drew this picture. His meaning 
is rendered too specific by the declaration, 1 She 
brought forth a son, who is to rule all nations with 
an iron sceptre,' to admit of any room for doubt as 
to the general design of this proem to the second 
catastrophe 4 ." 

Dr. Gumming, who, in his interesting Apoca- 
lyptic Sketches, interprets the birth of the man- 
child as " the symbol of Christian people, the first- 
born, — the 144,000 — the sealed ones incorporated, 
or in their corporate and united capacity 5 ," adds, 
"it cannot mean our Lord in any sense or shape; 
nothing but the most arbitrary and unwarranted 
construction could lead to this conclusion 6 ." In 

3 Chap. xii. 

4 Vol. i. p. 185. See also vol. ii. p. 249. 

5 P. 220. 

6 Dr. dimming says, p. 218, "The woman, I believe, repre- 
sents Christ's true Church — the sealed ones," &c. Hence the 



254 



THE WOMAN CLOTHED 



[PART II. 



support of my position I would therefore direct 
attention to the following passages, either directly, 
or by implication, parallel. We read, ver. 5, that 
the woman " brought forth a man-child, who was to 
rule all nations with a rod of iron : and her child 
was caught up unto God, and to His throne." It 
will be objected, that this latter clause does not, 
with sufficient distinctness, fix the description on 
our Blessed Lord, some allusion to whose death and 
resurrection is requisite fully to satisfy the mind, as 
to this definite object of the vision. But, in point 
of fact, the anticipated references are implied. To 
the passage before us, a Her child was caught up 
unto God, and to His throne," the opening words 
of Psalm ex., " The Lord said unto my Lord, 
Sit thou at my right hand until I make thine 
enemies thy footstool," must needs surely furnish 
a parallel. Now, on referring to Acts ii. 34, 
35, we find St. Peter applying this passage to 
Christ. Dr. Cumming must ignore this parallelism 
and St. Peter's direct application of it to our Lord, 
in connexion with those other words of the Psalmist, 
u Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt 
thou suffer thy Holy One to see corruption," to be 
justified in his assertion, that the interpretation 
here given is arbitrary and unwarrantable. In fact, 
the whole history of the Messiah up to his Ascen- 
sion is contained in the Apostle's address. He 

woman and her offspring the same ! By this view the propriety 
of the symbolism is destroyed. 



CH. II.] 



WITH THE SUN. 



255 



adduces Psalm xvi. as having reference to his death 
and resurrection, and couples with it Psalm ex. as 
referring to his session at the right hand of God 7 . 
Psalm ii. 6, " Yet have I set my king upon my holy 
hill of Sion," can scarcely but suggest itself to the 
mind as affording another parallelism, as also that 
wondrous passage in the Epistle to the Ephesians, 
where St. Paul speaks of the " working of God's 
mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when 
he raised him from the dead, and set him at his 
own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all 
principality, and power, and might, and dominion, 
and every name that is named, not only in this 
world, but also in that which is to come ; and hath 
put all things under his feet, and gave him to be 
the head over all things to the Church, which is 
his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all 8 ." 

I contend, therefore, that no allusion to the death 
and resurrection of Christ prior to the ascension is 
here requisite, those points being deducible from pa- 
rallel passages. As Hengstenberg observes, in argu- 
ing on a somewhat analogous case, these events are 
not " delineated in this book," — " it is supposed that 
the truth is known from other books of Scripture V 

7 See 1 Cor. xv. 25. Heb. i. 13 ; x. 12, 13. Eev. v. 6. See 
Hengstenberg, vol. i. p. 462. 

8 Epb. i. 19—23. See also Col. iii. 1. Heb. i. 3 ; x. 12. 

9 An objection might possibly be raised to the supposition 
that the offspring of the woman is Christ, from the expression 
" child" used in our version. " Her child was caught up to 



256 



THE WOMAN CLOTHED 



[PART II. 



On the whole we can scarcely but conclude that 
the passage before us has this twofold signification : 
it symbolizes at once the birth of Moses in Egypt, 
and that of Christ into an unbelieving world. But, 
taught as we are to look upon Moses as so pre- 
eminent a type of Christ, are we not led, in pur- 
suance of this analogy, to regard the inveterate 
enemy of the infant Moses as the type of Herod ? 
If Moses and Christ be correlatives, then surely 

God and to His throne." That objection, so far as our trans- 
lation is concerned, might be met by reference to Acts iv. 27, 
where the term child is applied by the Christian Church to 
Christ at the period of his passion. The terms used, indeed, in 
Acts iv. 27, and in Eev. xii. 5, are not the same in the original. 
But while that in the Acts shows that the word ttcuq (pais) is 
spoken of " a child in respect to his father without regard to 
age *," the word tekvov, employed in the Revelation, appears 
also to denote, not the infancy of the object designated, but his 
parentage, from teku> (obsolete) or tiktoj, to procreate, referring 
rather to the fact of maternity or paternity than to the child- 
hood of the offspring f. Indeed the word tekvov would probably 
be most accurately rendered by the more comprehensive term, 
offspring, including as it does all the circumstances of sex and 
age. A child ceases not to be a tekvov when he becomes a 
man ; and the expression, therefore, is equally applicable to the 
son of Mary when laid in a manger, and when (according to 
our translation) St. Paul speaks of him as "this man" who, 
" after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down 
on the right hand of Grod." 



# Eose's Parkhurst. 

t See Rose's Parkhurst. tekvwv is a little child. See Scap. 
Lex. 



CH. II.] 



WITH THE SUN. 



257 



Pharaoh and Herod are correlatives also 10 . And as 
in the one case we behold the early germs of that 
fearful opposition, encountered in after days, and 
under a later monarch, by the Hebrew Lawgiver, 
do we not in the other discern the seed of that 
wilful antagonism, which in process of time arrayed 
itself more and more daringly against the person 
and dominion of Messiah ? As in the one history 
we perceive the first traces of Antimosaism, in the 
other do we not recognise the first indication of 
Antichristianity ? 

And this view of the commencement of the 
12th chapter is, most unexpectedly, found to 
answer in a remarkable manner to the opinion 
of the early Church respecting the close of the 
13th. They in the latter beheld the last manifes- 
tation of Antichrist ; we in the former recognise 
th e first outgoings of Antichristianity. 

10 Thus, in his Annotations on Exod. i. 16, Scott observes, 
that "Pharaoh at this time (as Herod did long after) 
proved his relation to that great Dragon who sought to destroy 
the man-child as soon as it was born. (Rev. xii. 4.)" Spir. 
Expos, of the Apoc. vol. iii. p. 306. 



S 



1 



258 



MICHAEL AND THE DRAGON. [PART II. 



CHAPTER III. 

MICHAEL AND THE DRAGON. 

Our last chapter closed in Egypt; the present one, 
in harmony with the view we are taking, opens in 
the wilderness. " The woman fled into the wilder- 
ness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that 
they should feed her there a thousand two hundred 
and threescore days." Strictly speaking, however, 
I should rather say that we are led to contemplate, 
not the arrival of the woman in the wilderness, hut 
her flight towards it, the preposition etc indicating 
motion of any kind, or the direction of motion to a 
place. It is true, indeed, that the woman was in a 
wilderness, for such was the character of the coun- 
try between Goshen and the Red Sea, hut, as yet, 
she had not reached her appointed place in the 
wilderness of Sinai, but was still on her journey 
thitherward. 

Against the interpretation which views the flight 
from Egypt towards the wilderness as here adum- 
brated, the following objection may be raised. If 



CH. III.] MICHAEL AND THE DRAGON. 



259 



this opinion be correct, how is it that the great 
event of the Exode, the Cataclysm at the Red Sea, 
forms no feature in the symbolic picture ? I reply, 
that by implication it undoubtedly does so ; that, by 
a latent allusion in the prophecy, the precognition of 
this miraculous event is not merely supposed, but 
imperatively required; and moreover, that, by the 
interpretation we are adopting, a clause in the pro- 
phecy which has, so far as I know, hitherto baffled 
inquiry, seems to receive illustration. 

The generality of writers on the Apocalypse have 
treated the 6th and 14th verses of this 12th chapter 
as parallel passages, regarding the former as a pri- 
mary statement, the latter as its mere recapitula- 
tion. There is, however, one marked difference in 
the two texts, which would lead to the conclusion 
that such a mode of treatment is inadmissible. In 
the 6th verse it is said: " The woman fled (rfvyzv) 
into the wilderness ;" in the 14th : " To the woman 
were given two wings of a great eagle, that she 
might fly " (Trerrjrai) thither. The English reader 
must be cautioned against being misled by a seem- 
ingly equivalent term. According to our version, 
the words fled and fly seem to indicate a parallelism, 
whereas the expressions in the original wholly pre- 
clude such an idea ; the difference between the two 
verbs being as obvious as decided. Thus, $auyw is 
to flee or run from danger; veronal, to fly with ex- 
panded wings. In the former instance, the woman 
does not fly as a bird, but flees in ordinary manner 

s 2 



260 MICHAEL AND THE DRAGON. [PART II. 

on her feet ; in the latter she is borne on eagles' 
wings. The first portion of her flight is natural, 
the second supernatural. I should, therefore, be 
inclined rather to regard verse 14 as a continuation 
of the history commenced in verse 6, and the inter- 
mediate passage as representing some disturbing 
influence, which forbids the narration to flow in a 
consecutive manner, and, rendering impracticable 
the woman's natural flight, makes miraculous assist- 
ance indispensable to her safety. The history, to 
which I imagine allusion to be made, precisely meets 
the difficulty. On their departure from Egypt, the 
Israelites fled in their own strength ; but when, by 
the hot pursuit of their enemies, they were so 
hemmed in that all human power became unavail- 
ing, Divine assistance was needed and supplied. 

Now, observe the figure which the Almighty saw 
fit to employ to describe the wondrous deliverance 
He then wrought for His people. " Ye have seen 
what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bare you on 
eagles' wings and brought you to myself 1 ." How 
peculiarly beautiful and appropriate is the imagery 
used! The Israelitish Church is flying from the 
dread incarnation of the Solar Serpent. What 
more fitting than that she should be represented as 
borne by God on the wings of the eagle, that 
" natural foe of the Dragon 2 ?" 

1 See also Deut. xxxii. 11. 

2 See Wordsworth's Apoc. p. 260. 



CH. III.] MICHAEL AND THE DRAGON. 



261 



This very metaphor, made use of hy Moses to 
symbolize the escape of Israel from the hand of 
Pharaoh, is employed by St. John to describe the 
flight of the woman from the malice of the Dragon. 
If, then, the parallelism be designed, and we can 
scarcely think otherwise, the allusion to the over- 
throw in the Eed Sea being unmistakeable in the 
one case, must be intended to be preserved, though 
only by implication, in the other. Consequently, 
the objection, founded on the silence of the passage 
before us concerning the cataclysm, falls to the 
ground, the obviously parallel passage in the second 
book of Moses, which speaks of the flight of the 
Israelites, supplying also that very reference to the 
destruction of Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea, 
which might be felt necessary to establish the cor- 
rectness of the foregoing interpretation. 

Turn we now to the account given of the dis- 
turbing power, which arrested the flight of the 
woman towards the wilderness, and rendered mira- 
culous interposition requisite. " There was war in 
Heaven : Michael and his angels fought against the 
Dragon ; and the Dragon fought and his angels, 
and prevailed not; neither was their place found 
any more in Heaven," &c. &c. 

Following the teaching of the chapter under con- 
sideration, we have been led to regard the Dragon 
of the Apocalypse as no less than " that old serpent 
called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the 
whole world." We can scarcely, then, view his 



262 MICHAEL AND THE DRAGON. [PART II. 

angels as merely earthly instruments of his will; 
but must regard them as real spiritual existences, — 
evil spirits of a like nature with himself, whose 
office and pleasure it is to do his bidding, and 
labour for the extension and augmentation of his 
power. Both Michael and the Devil are repre- 
sented as personally engaged in the warfare, and 
the struggle as maintained on either side by spi- 
ritual existences, eager to support the cause of their 
respective leaders. Responses to this conflict are 
indeed to be found on earth; but the great arche- 
type was wrought in Heaven. In fact, it is in con- 
sequence of the disastrous termination to the 
Dragon and his angels of the celestial encounter, 
that augmented sufferings are represented as in- 
flicted by the vanquished combatant upon the 
inhabitants of the earth and of the sea; Satan's 
overthrow in Heaven urging him to more desperate 
exertions in this lower sphere. 

Since the fall of " the angels, which kept not their 
first estate," incessant has been the war waged by 
Satan against the Most High. There are, how- 
ever, momentous crises in the conflict, and one 
of these would appear to be now before us. We 
read of him as " the Prince of the power of 
the air," as "going to and fro in the earth, and 
walking up and down in it," as coming in the 
company of the sons of God, to present himself 
before the Lord, exercising the awful privilege 
of accusing the righteous day and night before God. 



CH. III.] MICHAEL AND THE DRAGON. 



263 



Earth, Air, Heaven, all seem open to his machina- 
tions; so illimitable in the earlier periods of the 
world would appear to have been the extent of his 
power, so boundless the range of his operations. 
How intense may we imagine his desire, how vehe- 
ment his efforts, to frustrate the object of Him who 
came to deliver the world from the tyranny of his 
sway ! 

Anticipating the effect of that dread struggle, in 
which he was about to encounter the arch-enemy 
of mankind, our Saviour exclaimed, " Now is the 
judgment of this world; now shall the prince of 
this world be cast out : and I, if I be lifted up from 
the earth, will draw all men unto me 3 ." We see 
the fulfilment of that anticipation in the passage 
before us. The man-child is caught up to God, 
and to his throne. Satan, foreseeing the conse- 
quence, madly endeavours to pursue the ascended 
Saviour, to tear perchance, if it may be, the con- 
queror from his throne, to hurl Him headlong from 
the right hand of the Majesty on high ; at all events 
to interpose himself an obstacle between the Re- 
deemer and the redeemed, impeding the ascent of 
believers to that glory, whither their Saviour 
Christ had gone before. Michael, the guardian 
angel of God's people, issues forth to arrest the im- 
pious design, meets him in the regions of mid-air, 
stays his farther progress to the presence of Deity, 

3 Observe the opposition in Eev. xii. 4, " His tail drew the 
third of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth." 



264 



MICHAEL AND THE DRAGON. [PART II. 



and casts him to the earth, there to pursue his in- 
fernal machinations within the circumscribed limits 
of his diminished power. Henceforth the courts of 
heaven are barred against the adversary of man- 
kind; "the accuser of our brethren is cast down;" 
now, " who shall lay any thing to the charge of 
God's elect ? It is God that justifieth. Who is he 
that condemneth ? It is Christ that died, yea 
rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right 
hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us V 

4 Rom. viii. 33, 34. In confirmation of this view respecting 
the ejection of Satan from heaven, I avail myself of a quota- 
tion from the pages of the " Protoplast." 

" It appears that Satan, although he lost his place and stand- 
ing among the angelic sons of God immediately upon his trans- 
gression, yet was not wholly prevented entering in among 
them, and appearing in the presence of God. His portion in 
the lake of fire was appointed unto him, his everlasting sentence 
was pronounced, his chain of misery was bound upon him, — 
the quenchless flame was lighted, and the gnawing undying 
worm was brought forth ; yet, in the very heaven of heavens, 
before the glorious throne of the spotless One, was found, ever 
and anon, the lost spirit ; and when the shining ranks of the 
blessed gathered round the Lord, he also came in with them. 

" Upon the triumphal entrance of the risen Jesus into the 
true Holy of Holies, Satan was finally driven from that pre- 
sence chamber of God, there no more to appear, ever and anon, 
as the accuser of the just. Hitherto he had had the power to 
go in with the sons of God, and make his charge against the 
righteous ; henceforth he must remain without the gates of the 
heavenly city. In conformity with this, we find, in the Book of 
Job, account given of Satan's appearance in heaven as his 
accuser. ' There was a day when the sons of God came to 



CH. III.] MICHAEL AND THE DRAGON. 



265 



Hitherto, we have regarded the sacred sym- 
bolism before us as presenting a mystic parallel to 
the history of the Exode. The question then 
arises : is there any such parallelism in that portion 
of it we are now considering ? It has been ob- 
served by Dr. Adam Clarke, that the phraseology 
of the whole chapter is peculiarly Rabbinical, and 
the very first illustration he furnishes is taken from 

present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also with 
them,' &c. &c. 'And Satan said, Doth Job fear God for 
nought? Put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he 
hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.' Tea, when Satan 
had obtained permission to touch all the possessions of Job, it 
is said, ' Again there was a day when the sons of G od came to 
present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among 
them.' Again in Zech. iii. 1, we find Satan standing at the 
right hand of Joshua to resist him. And in that remarkable 
passage, 2 Chron. xviii. 18 — 22, we read that the Lord sat upon 
his throne, and all the host of heaven stood on his right hand 
and his left, 1 And the Lord said, Who shall entice Ahab,' &c. ; 
' and there came out a spirit, and stood before the Lord, and 
said, I will entice him. I will go out, and be a lying spirit in 
the mouth of all his prophets.' 

" Surely these passages, when studied carefully, and taken in 
connexion with the 19th (12th ?) chapter of Revelation, must 
convince us that Satan had an entrance into heaven prior to 
the ascension of Christ. Then mark how in the 10th verse 
of this chapter which we have been considering, we have the 
song of spirits in heaven, ' Now is come {now that Jesus has 
ascended as a conqueror), now is come salvation and strength, 
and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ ; for 
the accuser of our brethren is cast down, who accused them 
before our God day and night,' " &c. Protoplast, vol. i. p. 519. 



2G6 



MICHAEL AND THE DRAGON. [PART IT. 



a mystical interpretation of Exod. xxi. 22, which 
involves a struggle between Michael and Samael 
(Satan) concerning the Israelitish church. The 
next refers to the descent of Michael to take up an 
Israelitish child, born in Egypt, to the throne of 
glory, on the same night the first-born of Egypt 
were destroyed. 

To pass from Dr. Adam Clarke to the com- 
mentary of Dr. Gill, he says : " The phrase, war in 
Heaven, is not unknown to the Jews ; they say, 
when Pharaoh pursued after Israel there was war 
above and below, and there was a very fierce war in 
heaven ; Michael and his angels fought against the 
dragon^T Again, on Exod. xiv. 19, "the angel of 
God, which went before the camp of Israel, re- 
moved and went behind them," Dr. Gill observes; 
" The Jews say this was Michael, the great prince, 
which became a wall of fire between Israel and the 
Egyptians 6 ." 

Turning from these passages to the chapter under 
consideration, we can scarcely but deem that the Holy 
Spirit, in selecting such a similarity of phraseology, 
would sanction the idea, and indicate the existence, 
of a similarity of fact; that in either case, reference 
is made to a spiritual conflict in high places between 
Michael and the Dragon, involving the fortunes of 
the chosen people of God. 

Indeed, the inspired narrative demonstrates the 

5 Gill, vol. vi. pp. 10, 11. 

6 See Clarke for more on the subject. 



CH. III.] MICHAEL AND THE DRAGON. 267 

correctness of the Rabbinical tradition. The hosts 
of Israel and of Egypt are but subordinate actors 
in the sublime drama — visible indices, portraying 
the phases of a dread and invisible struggle be- 
tween higher and antagonistic powers. The con- 
flict was no mere mortal strife. To the children 
of Israel, terror-stricken at the apparent hopeless- 
ness of their situation, Moses exclaims, "Fear ye 
not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord. 
.... The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall 
hold your peace." And although the direct agency 
of Satan is not recognised in the sacred record, yet 
we can scarcely suppose him absent from a scene in 
which his vital interests were so intimately involved. 
We may, on the contrary, well imagine him mar- 
shalling his puissances and concentrating his ener- 
gies for a struggle, on the event of which, the very 
existence of his power was made, ultimately, to 
depend. 

Again. The spiritual champions fighting in the 
cause of Moses and of the man-child, seem to be 
identical. In Exod. xiv. 19, we are told that "the 
angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, 
removed and went behind them," and in chap. xiii. 
21, we read, " And the Lord went before them by 
day in a pillar of a cloud," &c. Clearly, then, this 
angel was an uncreated angel, " the angel of God's 
presence," and " His name was in him." Speaking 
of this glorious Being, Dr. Adam Clarke says, " It 
is most probable that the Angel of the covenant, 



268 MICHAEL AND THE DRAGON. [PART II. 

the Lord Jesus, appeared on this occasion on behalf 
of the people, for, as this deliverance was to be an 
illustrious type of the deliverance of man from the 
power and guilt of sin by his incarnation and death, 
it might have been deemed necessary, in the judg- 
ment of Divine Wisdom, that He should appear chief 
agent in this most important and momentous 
crisis." 

The angel of the Exode, and the celestial Being 
spoken of in Rev. xii., would thus appear to be one 
and the same, — the Archangel or Prince of Angels, 
the great Prince that standeth for the children of 
God's people, the Eternal Word, the First-born of 
God, the Messenger of the Covenant, the Angel of 
God's presence, the ever-watchful Guardian of the 
Jewish and Christian Church, the form under which 
the Eternal Logos veiled the brightness of His 
glory in His visible manifestations to man, previous 
to the period of His incarnation. 

But this conclusion may seem to militate against 
the view we have taken that the man-child is 
Christ; for then it would appear as if the inspired 
Seer, while representing Christ as seated at the 
right hand of God, exhibited Him simultaneously 
in another form as fighting in mid- air with the 
Devil and his angels. Whence it may be argued, 
that if Michael be Christ, we cannot assume the 
man-child to be Christ also, without laying our- 
selves open to a charge of confusing the symbolism, 
similar to that urged against Dr. Cumming in a 



CH. III.] MICHAEL AND THE DRAGON. 269 

former page 7 . I would, however, remind those, 
who advocate the theory that the man-child is not 
Christ, but his first-fruits, that the session of the 
first-fruits of Christ necessarily presupposes the 
exaltation of Christ Himself ; that not one indi- 
vidual Christian could, by possibility, have been 
there enthroned, had not Christ Himself previously 
entered into his glory. " To him that overcometh," 
saith Christ, "will I grant to sit with me (^ar' tjuov) 
in my throne, even as I also overcame and am set 
down with my Father in His throne." If, then, 
Michael be God the Logos (and to my apprehen- 
sion Zech., chap, iii., compared with Jude, ver. 9, 
will admit of no other construction), the supposed 
difficulty regarding the man-child rests with my 
opponents equally with myself. 

I do not, however, think that the difficulty before 
us is in reality so great as at first sight appears. 
From all that we are told in Scripture of Michael 
the Archangel, we shall, I think, be led to conclude, 
that the Logos and Michael are, strictly speaking, 
not identical, but separate existences, and that the 
latter was that highly favoured Being in whom the 
Logos willed to manifest Himself to His people, ere 
He became incarnate. In a word, I would not have 
it inferred, that because Michael contended with 
the Dragon, therefore the man Christ Jesus, in 

7 See foot-note, p. 253. 



270 MICHAEL AND THE DRAGON. [PART II. 

whom dwelt u all the fulness of the Godhead bodily," 
left the Eternal Throne, nor that He was at one and 
the same time at God's right hand, and warring in 
mid-air with the powers of darkness, " it being 
against the truth of Christ's natural body to be at 
one time in more places than one," but that the 
arch-angelic being, in whom the Word had exhibited 
Himself in the Old Dispensation, fought with 
Satan as the champion of the Eternal Son, now 
in his glorified manhood ever incarnate and en- 
throned. 

But to return. As the Rabbins observe, there 
was war above and war below. In so far as the 
passage before us refers to the terrestrial events of 
the Exode, there can be little doubt as to the chro- 
nological position, which the conflict, represented by 
the Angelic and Satanic hosts, should occupy. It 
will fall between the period, when, at the instance 
of Pharaoh and his people, the children of Israel 
quitted Egypt, and the time when, repenting him 
of the permission he had granted, the infatuated 
monarch pursued the flying multitudes into the 
midst of the sea. Precisely during this interval in 
the history of the Exodus, it is declared, " The enemy 
said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the 
spoil; my lust shall be satisfied upon them. I will 
draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them. 
Thou didst blow with thy wind; the sea covered 
them. They sank as lead in the mighty waters." 



CH. III.] MICHAEL AND THE DRAGON. 271 

Moses had now been divinely appointed captain 
of the hosts of Israel. Their departure from cap- 
tivity under his guidance was in the act of accom- 
plishment. That departure, primarily, not merely 
sanctioned by Pharaoh, but enforced, was now to be 
achieved, only through Divine interposition. The 
last mighty struggle, between the inspired leader of 
God's people and the arch -potentate of Satan, was 
at hand, which was to decide whether of the twain 
should henceforth rule the destinies of the chosen 
people of God. It closed in the meeting of the 
waters over the armies of Egypt. Up to this period 
the journey of the Israelites had been a flight; 
thenceforth it became simply & pilgrimage. Here, 
then, is one vast earthly echo to the thunders of the 
Apocalypse ! 

When we bear in mind that the bondage of Israel 
in Egypt was typical of the subjugation of mankind 
to Satan, a clue is afforded as to where the response 
to this reverberation should be sought. Egypt and 
the wilderness of Sinai, separated as they are by the 
Red Sea, seem to stand, relatively to each other, as 
darkness to light, as slavery to liberty, — Egypt 
indicating the position of man in his unredeemed 
state, the abject slave of Satan, whether the volun- 
tary or reluctant minion of his will ; — the wilderness 
symbolizing his state subsequently to Redemption, 
when, freed from the shackles of a paralysed adver- 
sary, he had entered upon that pilgrimage which 



272 MICHAEL AND THE DRAGON. [PART II. 

was to conduct him to the haven of his rest, — it 
being so ordained by Divine Wisdom, that the 
enslaved and miraculously delivered children of 
Abraham should, " in all things," serve as types 
and shadows of the lost and recovered children of 
God. 

The great combination of earthly powers, in 
opposition to the doctrine of the resurrection and 
ascension of Christ, is sufficiently indicated by the 
voice of the infant Church, when, in supplicating 
grace and miraculous assistance under the persecu- 
tion with which she was threatened, she says, 
"Against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast 
anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the 
Gentiles, and the people of Israel" (observe the 
two heads and bodies — that Jewish and Pagan 
union of Antichristianity, ) "were gathered toge- 
ther." Our blessed Lord had already pointed out 
the connexion between these terrestrial agents and 
the spiritual instigators of evil, spoken of in the 
Apocalypse, by thus apostrophizing his captors in 
the garden, " This is your hour and the power of 
darkness." Here, then, is a response to the con- 
flict of the Exode, and another earthly echo to the 
celestial thunders. Strictly speaking, the passage 
before us, while pointing in general terms to the 
opposition exercised by their respective rulers 
against the thousands of Jews and Gentiles who 
embraced Christianity, indicates more especially, 



CH. III.] MICHAEL AND THE DRAGON. 273 

the period which elapsed in each individual case, 
between the secret conversion of the mind from 
idols to serve the living God, and their open pro- 
fession of faith in Christ crucified, manifested by 
their descent into the baptismal waters. It was 
the earnest spirit of proselytism, gathering its multi- 
tudes into the fold of Christ, which the Satanic agen- 
cies were so strenuous to suppress, striving by threats 
and punishments, confiscations and slaughters, to 
stifle the secret convictions of those who gave heed 
to the words of eternal truth, as uttered by the 
divinely-inspired Apostles, and to arrest the pro- 
gressive germination of Divine life in the heart, ere 
Christian vitality was openly displayed in its full 
development. It was the period between the time 
when, to apply the words of the Apostle, " with the 
heart man believeth unto righteousness," and that 
when " with the mouth confession is made unto sal- 
vation." This period would seem to correspond 
with that of the flight. To it succeeded, although 
still beset with difficulties, the Christian pil- 
grimage. 

In opposition to the view we are taking of the 
conflict between Michael and Satan may possibly 
be adduced the utterance of the loud voice in 
Heaven, saying, " They (our brethren) overcame 
him (Satan) by the blood of the Lamb, and by the 
word of their testimony; and they loved not their 
lives unto death." It may be urged, that the vision 
here has reference to a later period of time than 

T 



274 MICHAEL AND THE DRAGON. [PART II. 

that which we have assigned to it, viz. to the 
triumphs of those apostles and prophets, evan- 
gelists, pastors, and teachers whom Christ, after his 
ascension, gave "for the perfecting of the saints, 
for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the 
body of Christ." 

First, note that the utterance is clearly of a 
prophetic character, and in accordance with scrip- 
tural usage. From what has been, it predicates 
what shall he hereafter. From the triumph of 
Christ, it realizes by anticipation the victory of 
those that are Christ's. To borrow the words of 
Moses Stewart, " Old Testament prophecy assumes 
the existence of occurrences disclosed or predicted. 
Every critical writer knows well that the Hebrew 
prophets every where, and with great frequency, 
employ even the Prceterite tense when predicting 
future occurrences. The reason is, that this de- 
signates the certainty of those occurrences. We 
need only to read the Apocalypse in order to be 
satisfied that a similar method of prediction is fol- 
lowed in it. For example, let the reader connect 
Chap. xiv. 8, and many other passages of the same 
tenor, when he will see future occurrences described 
as things which had already happened 8 ." 

But farther. If our position be correct, that 
the history of the Exodus and the passage before 
us are correlatives, the objection may, I apprehend, 



Vol. ii. p. 450. 



CH. III.] MICHAEL AND THE DRAGON. 275 

be met by another and more conclusive mode of 
reasoning. On turning from the voice of exulta- 
tion in the Revelation to the Song of Moses, we 
find that a similar phraseology, expressive of the 
certainty of things to come, is adopted by the in- 
diter of that majestic ode. From the accomplished 
fact of the Exodus, he assumes and speaks of, as 
also accomplished, the establishment of God's 
people in the land of promise : " Thou in thy 
mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast 
redeemed : Thou hast guided them in thy strength 
unto thy holy habitation. " 

The Song of Moses, then, and the loud voice from 
heaven, harmonize with and explain each other. 
The latter is, as it were, the antiphone of the 
former. In either case, the crisis of the struggle 
was past, the escape from Egypt involved in it, 
although not personally, yet nationally, the posses- 
sion of Canaan, and therefore Moses, when com- 
memorating the accomplishment of the one, was 
inspired to celebrate the fulfilment of the other. 
The passage of Christ through the grave, when by 
death He overcame him that had the power of 
death, that is, the devil, and his exaltation to the 
right hand of the Majesty on high, were sure and 
certain pledges of the blessed resurrection and 
ascension of the vast body of the Church when 
Time shall be no more. Christ " by the grace of 
God having tasted death for every man," and the 

t 2 



276 MICHAEL AND THE DRAGON. [PART II. 

promise being gone out, " If thou shalt confess with 
thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine 
heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou 
shalt be saved," — Christ having conquered, albeit 
for Christ's sake his followers should be killed all 
day long, and accounted as sheep for the slaughter, 
yet in all these things they would be more than 
conquerors through Him who loved them. The 
cause and effect were inseparable ; they could not 
be dissociated. The natural and spiritual Exodus 
each had its inevitable issue in its respective rest 
and salvation, and in either case, the song, which 
celebrated the completion of the one, commemorated 
also, as its consequent, the fulfilment of the other. 
The very peculiarity of the expression, then, is a 
confirmation of the view contended for, by associating 
itself with an analogous figure of speech, which 
admits of but one mode of interpretation. 

But, if necessary, the difficulty might be met by a 
simple recurrence to the acknowledged fact, that in 
the Apocalypse time itself is often well-nigh anni- 
hilated, whole centuries being not unfrequently 
passed over in a single sentence. Indeed, the sacred 
drama evidently progresses at the 10th verse. It 
passes from Christ to his Church, and assumes the 
triumph of the latter as resulting from that of the 
former. 

It were unwise, then, to set limits to the scope of 
the Prophecy. It had its resonance here, there, 



CH. III.] MICHAEL AND THE DRAGON. 277 

every where. Antagonism could not arrest the 
preaching of the cross, nor stay the operations of 
the Spirit. The sons of thunder awoke new and 
startling echoes in the dark mountains, and far 
distant rocks reverberated with the awakened 
sound. The inhabitant of the earth and of the 
sea, Jew and Gentile, each has his part there; and 
not only so, but the various phases of the Christian 
life, — conviction, conversion, baptism, the life of 
trial, the death of triumph, the resurrection to 
glory, — all seem embraced in the wondrous grouping. 
Scripture utters its response, whether Saul falls 
prostrate to the earth, and confesses, as his Lord 
and his God, Him whom before he had persecuted; 
or whether Stephen, rapt in the beatific vision of 
Jesus standing at the right hand of God, falls 
asleep with the blissful conviction that where his 
blessed Master is, there shall he be also. It 
answers to us from Ephesus, when the many who 
believed came, and confessed, and showed their 
deeds, and brought those books of curious arts, and 
burned them before all men. It replies in the 
Hallelujahs of that noble army of martyrs, who 
M were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that 
they might obtain a better resurrection." It thun- 
ders back its response, when the crumbling towers 
of Jerusalem, that infidel city, fell before the Roman 
armies; and, to conclude in the words of Arch- 
deacon Harrison, "in the historic records of the 
age which saw the triumphant issue of the struggle 



278 



MICHAEL AND THE DRAGON. [PART II. 



between the Christian faith and the Pagan Empire 
of Rome, we find descriptions which may be re- 
garded as at least the earthly shadow of that which 
is here disclosed 9 ." 



9 P. 334 



CH. IV.] 



A DAY FOR A YEAR. 



279 



CHAPTER IV. 

A DAY FOR A YEAR. 

We are yet in the land of peregrination, the wilder- 
ness of Sinai. The sojourn there was a protracted 
one; that of the temporal Israel extending over a 
period of forty years, that of the spiritual Israel 
over one described as a term of a thousand two 
hundred and threescore days, or, as in verse 14 
of the chapter before us, a time, times, and half a 
time. 

This prophetic period has been variously treated 
by different commentators, one party regarding it 
as a common index of time, another as shadowing 
forth a period more extended than meets the eye ; 
or, as Archdeacon Forster expresses himself, as 
adumbrating a longer period under the disguise of 
a shorter; a third, as representing certain ideas, 
and not precise quantities. 

Supposing the first class of expositors to be 
correct in their estimate of this prophetic measure, 
my object being exclusively to throw light upon the 



280 



A DAY EOR A YEAR. 



[PART II. 



typical character of a portion of the Apocalypse 
any natural division of time may be passed over 
unnoticed. But if it be employed by the Evangelist 
to typify a period, or an idea, which it does not 
obviously present to the mind, then I shall hold 
myself scarcely justified in dismissing it without 
some comment. 

In a symbolic book, we shall probably be right 
in treating notations of time in a symbolic manner. 
"If (as Archdeacon Forster observes) the sym- 
bolical figures employed in these prophecies be the 
shadows of certain realities, why should not the 
periods of time, therein specified, partake of the 
same shadowy import also 2 ? " 

As an exponent of the opinion of those who re- 
gard these prophetic periods as indicative of cer- 
tain ideas, and not precise quantities, I shall beg 
permission to quote some striking remarks from 
Dr. Christopher Wordsworth. 

Speaking of the period in question, he says 3 : 
" These twelve hundred and sixty days equal forty- 
" two months, or three years and a half; and they 
" are mentioned under all these terms in the Apoca- 
" lypse. The Holy City is trodden by the Gentiles 
u forty -two months 4 . It is given to the Beast, to 
" exercise his power (7roir)oai) forty-two months*. 

1 See "Wordsworth's Lectures, p. 261. 

2 The Apocalypse its own Interpreter, 287. 

3 Lectures, 265, &c. 4 Eev. xi. 2. 

5 lb. xiii. 5. 



CH. IV.] 



A DAY FOR A YEAR. 



281 



" The Two Witnesses preach in sackcloth twelve 
" hundred and sixty days 6 . The Woman is in 
" the Wilderness twelve hundred and sixty days 7 ; 
" and she is also said to be in the Wilderness a 
" time, times, and half a time ; that is, three years 
" and a half 8 . 

" Now, if we examine the records of Scripture, 
" we find that the period of three years and a half 
" represents an idea ; one of spiritual toil, pil- 
" grimage, and persecution. First, it may be ob- 
" served, that three and a half, being the half of 
" seven, which is the number of completeness, re- 
" presents a semi-perfect state; one of transition 
" and probation. 

" In illustration of this, it may be remarked 
" here, that the body of the Two Witnesses remains 
" unburied three days and a half 9 . 

" The same kind of opposition to the Apostolic 
" number Twelve may, perhaps, be thought to 
" exist in the half of that number, six ; and to ex- 
" hibit itself in the remarkable combination of six 
" hundreds, six tens, and six units, which constitute 
" the number of the name of Antichrist \ 

" To proceed to facts. 

" Three years and a half, or forty-two months, 
u or twelve hundred and sixty days are, as we have 
" seen, the time of the pilgrimage of the Woman 

6 Eev. xi. 3. 7 lb. xii. 6. 

8 lb. xii. 14. 9 lb. xi. 9. 11. 

1 lb. xiii. 18. 



282 A DAY FOR A YEAR. [PART II. 

" in the Wilderness, that is, of the Church in her 
" trials. This number forty -two connects her with 
" the history of the Israelitish Church in the Wil- 
" derness. Its haltings are enumerated in the 
" Book of Numbers 2 , and they are forty -two. And 
" all these things (says St. Paul) happened to 
" them as types of us 3 . They foreshadow the his- 
u tory of the Christian Church in her pilgrimage 
" through the Wilderness of this World to the pro- 
" mised land of heaven. 

" Again : / tell you of a truth, says our blessed 
" Lord, many widows were in Israel in the days of 
" Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years 
u and six months, when great famine was through- 
" out all the land \ And St. James says, Elias 
" prayed it might not rain ; and it rained not on 
" the earth by the space of three years and six 
" months \ 

" It also pleased God to strengthen the type, if 
" we may so speak, by assigning precisely the same 
" duration of three years and a half to the great 
" persecution of the Church of Israel by Antiochus 
" Epiphanes, the figure of Antichrist. 

" St. John's precursor, Daniel, had named that 
" period as the period of that persecution. He had 
u also identified it with the future time of the trials 
" of the Christian Church, which are more fully 
" described by St. John. 

2 Chap. xxx. 1—50. 3 1 Cor. x. 6—11. 

4 Luke iv. 25. 5 James v. 17. 



I 



CH. IV.] 



A DAY FOR A YEAR. 



283 



" Thus the very mention of three years and a 
" half, to the ear of an Israelite, had an ominous 
" sound. It was the chronological symbol of suffer - 
" ing. 

" And to us Christians there is another reason 
" why it should be identified with a time of trial, if, 
" as some ancient writers assure us, and there is 
" good reason to believe, this period of three years 
"and a half 6 was the duration of the earthly 
" ministry of Him, — the great Prophet, the Divine 
" Witness of the truth, — Who was a man of sorrows 
" and acquainted with grief; and Who, as Daniel 
" prophesied, caused the sacrifice of the temple to 
" cease in the midst of a week by his own oblation 
" on the Cross. 

" Hence this period of three years and a half, 
" forty-two months, or twelve hundred and sixty 
" days, is employed in the Apocalypse as a typical 
" exponent of an idea; just as the numbers twelve 
" and twelve times twelve do not represent a precise 
" sum, but a well-defined principle. 

" We observe, in passing, that the locusts of 
" the fifth trumpet are said to have power to 
" injure for five months. This number also ex- 
" presses an idea. It designates the time of the 
" duration of the Deluge (Genesis vii. 24, viii. 3), 

G Some of the Fathers also supposed (adds the same Author 
in a foot-note) that this was the duration of the "flight in 
Egypt" of the Virgin Mother and her Divine Child. See 
Catena Cramer, p. 358. 36(5, 



284 



A DAY FOR A YE All. 



[PART II. 



" and indicates that the locusts would cover the 
" world, like the Flood; hut that the Ark of the 
" Church would float upon the waters, and rest 
" securely, when they were abated." 

This view of Dr. Wordsworth may be thought to 
receive confirmation from the fact, that whereas he 
adduces the forty-two haltings of the Israelites, 
mentioned in the Book of Numbers, in proof of the 
correctness of his position, we find that when St. 
John introduces this period of three years and a 
half in his mystic symbolism, the woman is repre- 
sented as in the wilderness. 

There seems, however, an objection to the mode 
of interpretation adopted by Dr. C. Wordsworth, 
which, if it does not altogether set aside the theory 
he advocates, tends essentially to modify it. On 
turning to the 12th chapter of the Prophet 
Daniel, we find that he too employs the term a 
time, times, and half a time, as an element in the 
structure of his Prophecy. But here it is evidently 
adopted as a mode of expressing a duration of un- 
fulfilled time. " One said to the man clothed in 
linen, which was upon the waters of the river, How 
long shall it be to the end of these wonders ? And 
I heard the man clothed in linen, which was upon 
the waters of the river, when he held up his right 
hand and his left hand unto heaven, and sware by 
Him that liveth for ever that it shall be for a time, 
times, and a half ; and when he shall have accom- 
plished to scatter the power of the holy people, all 



CH. IV.] 



A DAY FOR A YEAR. 



285 



these things shall be finished 7 ." The question and 
answer are here, obviously, both chronological. 

If, then, on the first occasion on which this con- 
troverted expression is met with in the page of 
Prophecy, it is used to indicate a period of time, 
either natural or mystic, a Divine authority would 
seem requisite to justify the rejection of it as a 
notation of time, either natural or mystic, when met 
with in a prophecy apparently modelled from, and 
based upon, the foundation of these identical pre- 
dictions of Daniel. 

But further, this notation of time is followed by 
the connotation of two other periods, both clearly 
intended to convey information of a chronological 
character. 

" And I heard, but I understood not : then said 
I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these 
things ? And he said, Go thy way, Daniel : for the 
words are closed up and sealed till the time of the 
end." " And from the time that the daily sacrifice 
shall be taken away, and the abomination that 
maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand 
two hundred and ninety days. Blessed is he that 
waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred 
and five and thirty days. But go thou thy way till 
the end be : for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy 
lot at the end of the days V 



7 Dim. xii. 6, 7. 



8 lb. xii. 8, &c. 



286 



A DAY FOR A YEAR. 



[PART II. 



Here again the question and answer are both 
indisputably chronological. 

Yet again, these latter periods of twelve hundred 
and ninety, and thirteen hundred and thirty-five 
days, are generally considered to be expansions of 
the preceding time, times, and a half. Now, if the 
three years and a half, or what is equivalent, twelve 
hundred and sixty days, be regarded simply as 
representing an idea of suffering, how are the addi- 
tional thirty and forty-five days to be treated ? 
Until it be shown that they also are capable of 
adumbrating distinct ideas, the theory we are 
examining is not without its incumbrance. Or, if 
the latter periods, spoken of in the 11th and 12th 
verses, instead of being considered with reference 
to their own respective value, be massed with the 
twelve hundred and sixty days which precede them, 
the theory enunciated by Dr. C. Wordsworth still 
seems to labour under this disadvantage ; that, until 
the twelve hundred and ninety, and thirteen hun- 
dred and thirty-five days, are proved to be of a non- 
chronological character, the first number must be 
treated as of an ideal order, although placed in such 
close proximity with others, which require to be 
chrono logica lly in terpreted. 

When, then, Dr. C. Wordsworth infers that, " on 
the whole, we arrive at this conclusion, that we 
ought not to attempt to deduce any arithmetical 
results, with regard to the future, from this number 



CH. IV.] 



A DAY FOR A YEAR, 



287 



of three and a half years, forty-two months, or 
twelve hundred and sixty days," it is very problema- 
tical how far we are justified in acquiescing in his 
opinion. Indeed, it is difficult to conceive, that 
because the period in question appears to be a chro- 
nological symbol of suffering, therefore it ought not 
to be regarded as also an index of time. On the 
contrary, feeling this period to be so intimately 
involved with others of a confessedly chronological 
nature, we shall, even while admitting its signi- 
ficancy as a trope of distress, be led to regard its 
office as primarily of a chronometrical order, and to 
conclude, that as an index of suffering it occupies 
only a subordinate position. 

Without, then, rejecting the time, times, and 
half a time, as a chronological symbol of suffering, 
we will proceed to consider it in what appears to be 
its more peculiar office, viz. as an index of a pro- 
phetic period. 

In a symbolic book, like the Apocalypse, should 
chronological mensuration form one of its elements, 
we should be naturally led to expect that the nota- 
tions of time would be symbolically expressed. The 
presumption, then, being in favour of this hypo- 
thesis, the next step in order to attain a correct 
standard of symbolic reckoning will be to inquire, 
what is the sacred metre by which these notations 
of time are to be adjusted. 

Turning to the Bible as its own interpreter, 
should any definite proportion in its earlier pages 



288 



A DAY FOR A YEAR. 



[PART II. 



appear to exist between times designated, and 
periods adumbrated, we should feel justified, on a 
prima facie consideration, in applying a similar 
mode of admeasurement to the elucidation of such 
notations of time as are to be met with in the 
prophecies under examination. Now, in the Old 
Testament, one system of mensuration, as unusual 
as it is remarkable, is found to exist : namely, a day 
for a year. Thus in Numb, xiv., when the children 
of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron, in 
consequence of the evil report brought by the spies 
sent to search out the land of Canaan, God said : 
" After the number of the days in which ye searched 
the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall 
ye bear your iniquities, even forty years." So in 
Ezekiel, chap. iv. ver. 4, God commanded the pro- 
phet, saying, " Lie thou also on thy left side, and 
lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it : 
according to the number of the days that thou shalt 
lie upon it thou shalt bear their iniquity. For I 
have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, 
according to the number of the days, three hundred 
and ninety days : so shalt thou bear the iniquity of 
the house of Israel. And when thou hast accom- 
plished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou 
shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty 
days : I have appointed thee each day for a year." 
But, indeed, the expression in the original is much 
more emphatic than in our English translation. 
Archdeacon Forster's comment on the passage is, 



CH. IV.] 



A DAY FOR A YEAR. 



289 



" I use the expression, the 4 day for a year,' because 
it is the literal translation of the words, in Numbers 
xiv. 34, and in Ezekiel iv. 6 ; where it is, in both 
places, repeated twice. The passage in our version 
is, 4 1 have appointed thee ' (Ezekiel) ' each day for 
a year.' The passage in the original is, 4 A day for 
a year, a day for a year, I have given that to thee/ 
Our version well expresses the meaning of the pas- 
sage ; but there is something remarkable in the 
repetition, i a day for a year, a day for a year,' as if 
to draw attention to the point 9 ." 

Moreover, a striking mutation of sentence is ob- 
servable on comparing these two verdicts, the one 
with the other. God adjudges the children of 
Israel to bear their own iniquities in the ratio of a 
year for a day; but in the vicarious suffering of 
Ezekiel for the sins of the people (whether in vision 
or veritably it matters not), that ratio is reversed; 
" I have appointed thee each day for a year '." 

A third instance of the adhibition of a day to 
typify a year, is found in that vision of Daniel 
generally known as the Prophecy of the seventy 
weeks : — an instance in which the accuracy of the 

9 The Apocalypse its own Interpreter, p. 284. 

1 Analogous to this may be the relation between the three 
and a half years of our Lord's ministerial suffering on earth, 
and the twelve hundred and sixty years, supposing such a sum 
to be indicative of tribulations which are laid upon His people. 
He bare their sins a day for a year : they, because they rejected 
Him, bare their own sins a year for a day. 

U 



290 



A BAY FOR A YEAR. 



[PART II. 



admeasurement is evidenced by the fulfilment of 
the prediction. 

We find, in Sacred Writ, three instances of 
this mystic mode of mensuration. In the first, is 
presented to us its Divine institution. In the 
second, it is employed by Ezekiel in the exercise of 
his prophetic office. In the third, it enters into the 
chronological calculations of prophecy. In each 
case it is associated with a season of punishment : 
in the first is foretold the forty years' peregrination 
in the wilderness : in the second, but in an inverse 
ratio, the suffering laid on Ezekiel for the trans- 
gression of God's people : in the third, the period 
which was to elapse between the return of the Jews 
from the Babylonish captivity, and their final re- 
jection as the peculiar people of God. 

The fulfilment of the Prophecy of the seventy 
weeks, not only vindicating but necessitating the 
use of the system of a day for a year, it may reason- 
ably be presumed, that in endeavouring to unravel 
the mystery connected with those other periods of 
time already alluded to, which occur in the earlier 
chapters of the same prophetic book, a similar 
mode of interpreting the symbol should be resorted 
to. The system, once established with regard to 
the interpretation of weeks, would indicate its con- 
tinued application in reference to days; and de- 
mand also for the time, times, and half a time, a 
similar mystic expansion. 

But does this method of reckoning close with the 



CII. IV.] 



A DAY FOR A YEAR. 



201 



Book of Daniel ? Turning from his prophetic 
pages, where days, and weeks, and times, appear 
necessarily to be so interpreted, and, opening the 
Book of the Revelations, we find similar periods of 
days, weeks, and times occurring. Homogeneity 
would appear therefore to compel an analogous 
rendering. 

But the argument will probably derive more 
cogency from the following considerations. The 
first, although in itself of little weight, may not be 
without its importance, when taken in connexion 
with those which follow. 

The symbolism connected with the prophesying 
of the Two Witnesses is clearly of a complex cha- 
racter. It is not impossible that Caleb and Joshua, 
those two faithful witnesses under the Old Covenant, 
may furnish a clue whereby to unravel the deep 
mystery of the Two Witnesses, who prophesy in 
sackcloth under the New. It was the office of the 
former to witness to an unfaithful and rebellious 
people concerning the excellencies and blessings of 
the temporal Canaan, and the certainty of its 
attainment by those, who trusted in the promises, 
and who followed the guidance of Jehovah, notwith- 
standing the opposition of antagonistic powers. 

It must clearly be the object and imperative duty 
of the two latter, whoever they may be, or what- 
ever they may represent, to bear testimony to the 
glories and excellencies of that blissful region, of 
which Canaan was but a type and shadow. I 

u 2 



292 



A DAY FOR A YEAR. 



[PART II. 



would observe then, that as it is in connexion with 
the faithful testimony of Caleb and Joshua, that 
the primitive measure of a day for a year is first in- 
troduced in Scripture, so with regard to the twelve 
hundred and sixty days which are supposed to re- 
quire a similar interpretation, they first present 
themselves in the Apocalypse, when the Two Faith- 
ful Witnesses are introduced on the prophetic 
canvas. 

Again. When Ezekiel was directed to perform 
a prophetic action involving the use of a day for a 
year, he had immediately before, at God's command, 
eaten the " roll of a book," which the hand had 
spread before him, wherein was written " lamenta- 
tion, and mourning, and woe 2 ; " and after devouring 
which, although in his mouth " as honey for sweet- 
ness V' yet, when the Spirit lifted him up, he went 
in the " bitterness " of his soul. So, when St. John 
made use of a system of numeration supposed to in- 
volve a similar mystic mode of reckoning, he also, 
at the command of the angel, had eaten " the little 
book" which the seraphic messenger had borne in 
his hand; and he too, albeit in his mouth it was 
"sweet as honey," found when he had eaten it that 
" his belly was bitter 4 ." 

But further. Not only is a parallelism indicated 
by the presentation of the Books, the charges con- 
cerning them, and the similar results produced 

2 Ezek. ii. 9, 10. 3 Ezek. iii. 3. 14. 

4 Rev. x. 9—11. 



CH. IV.] 



A DAY FOR A YEAR. 



293 



upon the tastes, and sensations of their recipients, 
but a further analogy is observable in the fact, 
that when Daniel (after having established his 
standard of prophetic measurement by the prophecy 
of the seventy weeks) was instructed concerning 
prophetic days and times, it was through the in- 
strumentality of a " man clothed with linen, which 
was upon the waters of the river, and who held 
up his right hand and his left hand toward 
heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever 5 ." 
So St. John, when commanded to prophesy of 
days, and weeks, and years, received his commis- 
sion from one, who, in appearance and attitude 
was almost precisely the same. 

In the prophecies of Daniel and of St. John, 
there seems to be a peculiar unity of purpose and 
design — especially on the point in question, where 
the relations between the two seem marked and 
decisive. Bearing this in mind, I shall venture to 
ask, if in the Book of Daniel, four hundred and 
ninety days symbolize four hundred and ninety 
years, what period of time will the twelve hundred 
and sixty days, specified by St. John, typify ? This 
question being answered in favour of the system of 
a day for a year, it seems to follow as a consequence, 
that the prophetic periods of weeks and years are 
to be interpreted by a similar standard. In Kev. 
vii. 6. 14, indeed, days and times are almost in- 



5 Dan. xii. 7. 



294 



A DAY FOR A YEAR, 



[part IT. 



J ubit ably used interchangeably; it will therefore 
require a yet larger amount of proof to demonstrate, 
that weeks, spoken of elsewhere, are not to be sub- 
jected to a similar mode of treatment. 

But here a difficulty may seem to attach to the 
system we are advocating, from the circumstance, 
that in the commencement of the very chapter in 
which the term " seventy weeks " occurs, Daniel 
represents himself as understanding " by books the 
number of the years, whereof the word of the Lord 
came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would ac- 
complish seventy years in the desolation of Jerusa- 
lem V Those prophetic years were undoubtedly 
natural years. How, then, it will be asked, are we 
justified in concluding, that the prophet passes im- 
mediately from natural years to figurative weeks ? 
What is the theory whereby is evidenced the pro- 
priety of the measure adopted, — homogeneity appa- 
rently requiring, in either case, a similar standard 
of measurement ? 

The following observations may tend in some 
measure to meet the difficulty. 

That a progression of sevens enters into the 
construction of the mystic symbolism of the law, 
no one will venture to deny. It appertains to the 
measure both of days, and of years. In the former 
instance, it runs thus : — 

7 days, then 7x7 = 49 days: Then the 50th 
day the Pentecost. 

6 Pan. ix. 2. 



CH. IV.] 



A DAY FOR A YEAR. 



295 



In the latter, thus : — 

7 years, then 7x7 = 49 years: Then the 50th 
year the Jubilee. 

Making, in the one case, a week of days, expand- 
ing into seven weeks of days ; in the other, a week 
of years, progressing to seven weeks of years. 

On turning to the 25th and 26th chapters of 
Leviticus, it will be observed, that Moses, after 
having in the former instituted this sacred pro- 
gression of years, threatens in the latter, in the 
event of disobedience, a sevenfold progression of 
punishment. It is precisely in the ratio of this 
same progression, that Daniel is conducted by the 
angel. He is advanced from the seventy years 
presently concluding, to seven times seventy, i. e. 
to the four hundred and ninety years yet to be ac- 
complished in the final destruction of the shortly- 
to-be-restored city and sanctuary. So far then, 
the relations which exist between the seventy 
years of Jeremiah and the four hundred and ninety 
years of Daniel, seem to be accounted for. Omni- 
science foresaw a continued persistence in sin, and 
predicted a sevenfold extension of punishment. 

But this does not account for the change of 
measurement observable between the prophets — 
Jeremiah and Daniel : it does not account for the 
fact, that, whereas the former speaks of years of 
days, the latter speaks of days of years. 

On this subject I venture to make the following 
remarks. 



296 A DAY FOR A YEAR. [PART II. 

That a similarity existed, in some particulars, 
between the ceremonial observances, and especially 
the forms and apparatus of Divine worship under 
the Mosaic Law, and the rites and ceremonies of 
the ancient Egyptians, was early discovered by 
those scholars who had made themselves acquainted 
with as much as could formerly be known (through 
the reports of Greek and Latin writers) concerning 
the idolatrous system practised in the land of Ham. 
It has been thought that the new sources of evi- 
dence which have been derived from the ancient 
paintings and sculptures of Egypt, — exhibiting as 
they do, with great minuteness of detail, the rites 
and ceremonies of Egyptian idolatry, the acts which 
were performed, the utensils which were employed, 
and the dresses and ornaments worn by the priest- 
hood in the service of their gods, — have altered the 
state of the question from one of argument to one 
of fact 1 . 

As a consequence, the inquiry has been raised, 
and the question much discussed, whether the 
Hebrew or the Egyptian system should be charged 
with imitation of the other; and it has been felt 
difficult to avoid the conclusion, that some Egyptian 
practices were admitted into the Jewish ritual. 

Allowing that important points of resemblance 
existed between the two, I would observe, that if 
the view taken in an earlier portion of this volume 

v See Kit-to' s Pictorial History of Palestine, vol. i. p. 224, &c. 



CH. IV.] 



A DAY FOR A YEAR. 



297 



be correct 8 , the idea that the Divine apparatus of 
Jewish worship was borrowed from Egypt is 
simply impossible : inasmuch as the Tabernacle of 
Witness, made according to the heavenly pattern 
seen by Moses in the Mount, and the ark with its 
accompanying cherubim and flame of fire were, as 
we have supposed, fashioned as a memorial, — 
and were indeed an elaborated restoration, — of the 
flame of fire, the cherubim, and the Tabernacle of 
Sacrifice at the eastern gate of Eden, instituted to 
meet the religious necessities of man consequent 
upon the Fall. 

Should imitation then be proved, that imitation 
must have originated, not in the Mosaic code, but 
in the religious system practised on the banks of 
the Nile. And if the monumental remains of 
Egyptian antiquity present to us an ark 9 , sur- 
mounted by cherubim, and having staves and rings 
more or less similar to those which pertained to the 
Ark of the Mosaic covenant, the resemblance, how- 
ever startling, must be sought for in other causes 
than those we have hitherto considered. 

Further, those who imagine the Egyptians to 

8 See pages 19—22. 60. 194. 

9 See the Plates in Kitto's Cyc.Bib. Lit., voce "Ark." Nos. 
91 and 93 present us with Arks surmounted by figures, almost 
similar in form and position to the cherubim on the Ark of the 
Covenant ; No. 89, with an Ark, wanting the cherubim, but 
having upon it an idol occupying the precise spot, where, on 
the Jewish ark, burned the Divine Shechinah. 



298 



A DAY FOR A YEAR. 



[PART II. 



have copied from the Hebrew original, have some- 
times fixed upon the time of Joseph's popularity 
and power as the period when such imitation was 
most likely to have taken place. Without rejecting 
as impossible such a supposition, I would observe, 
that an alternative remains for consideration. It is 
this. Were the Egyptians or the Israelites copyists 
at all, so far as regarded each other; or was not 
the ark of either nation derived from the same 
great prototype, the Divine Institute at the eastern 
gate of Paradise ? Viewing the Israelitish and the 
Egyptian arks at the greatest supposed amount of 
resemblance, — the chest, the cherubim, the staves, 
the rings, — one great point of difference yet existed 
between them. Whereas on the one, the symbol of 
the Divine Presence burned between the cherubim, 
on the other was placed the image of an Egyptian 
deity. What so probable, then, as that Satan had 
surreptitiously appropriated to himself a copy of 
the original institute of Divine worship appointed 
at the Fall, and had made the likeness of the 
earthly resting-place of Jehovah " the seat of the 
image of jealousy 1 rearing to himself an idol 
shrine in emulation of the hallowed throne of the 
Most High ? 

And this view of the case may receive confirma- 
tion from the fact, that the sacred shrine and ark of 
Egypt were generally represented as borne in a 



1 Ezek; viii. 3. 



CH. IV.] 



A DAY FOR A YEAR. 



299 



mystic boat, as though an antediluvian tradition, 
preserved in the ark of the Deluge, were the source 
of this idolatrous institute, and that a memorial of 
the shrine, set up at the gate of Paradise, had been 
transmitted by Ham or his immediate progeny to 
their descendants on the banks of the Nile. 

If the foregoing solution of the difficulty, arising 
from the co-existence of, and greater or less simi- 
larity of form between, the Israelitish and Egyptian 
arks, be admitted to meet the difficulties of the 
case, minor points, such as any supposed correspon- 
dence in the respective priestly vestments, may 
safely be left untouched. 

But another inquiry yet remains behind, — the 
question before us extending not merely to the 
sacred apparatus of Jewish worship, but to the 
elaborate ritual of the Mosaic Law. 

That the Egyptians were singularly devoted to 
gorgeous ceremonies symbolic of hidden mysteries 
is well known ; and that the Hebrew worship also, 
more especially that portion of it which was con- 
tained in the Levitical code, partook of a splendid 
and highly typical character, will be acknowledged 
by all. Was there in this point any connexion 
between the ceremonials of Israel and Egypt, and, 
if so, how did it arise ? 

A careful investigation of the Law of Moses may 
possibly lead to the supposition, that during the 
period of its promulgation a marked change took 
place in its character. 



300 



A DAY FOR A YEAR. 



[PART II. 



On referring to Exod. xxxi. 18, we learn that 
when the Lord " had made an end of communing " 
with Moses upon Mount Sinai, He gave unto him 
" two tables of stone written with the finger of God." 
The expression " made an end of communing with 
him" suggests the idea that at the termination of 
the forty days spent by Moses in the Mount, the 
Law, as it came originally from the Divine lips, 
was brought to a close. Let us turn to the 20th 
chapter of Exodus, and proceed to examine the 
structure and constituents of this law. The Al- 
mighty having proclaimed, "I am the Lord thy 
God who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, 
out of the house of bondage," goes on to deliver 
the Ten Commandments, to forbid the making of 
idols, and to give directions concerning the struc- 
ture of his altar. Chap. xxi. commences with a 
series of laws concerning rights of persons, rights of 
property, and moral obligations, followed by com- 
mands respecting the year of rest, the weekly 
Sabbath, idolatry, the three great annual festivals, 
the blood and fat of the sacrifice, and the offerings 
of firstfruits, &c. 2 These several enactments 
having been promulgated, Moses was called up to 
the summit of the Mount, to behold the pattern of 
the Tabernacle, which on his descent he was to 
construct for the worship of the God of Israel. 
" And Moses went into the cloud, and ascended up 

2 For a summary of these laws, see Kalisch on Exodus, 
p. 376. 



CH. IV.] 



A DAY FOR A YEAR. 



301 



into the mountain ; and Moses was in the mountain 
forty days and forty nights V 

In Chapters xxiv. to xxxi. 18, we have minute 
directions respecting the Ark of the Covenant, the 
Tabernacle with its furniture, the appointment and 
holy garments of Aaron and his sons, and the sacri- 
fices to be offered, terminating with the call of 
Bezaleel and Aholiab, after they had been qualified 
by Divine wisdom for the work enjoined. And 
then we read at the conclusion of Chap. xxxi. in the 
passage already alluded to, that " God gave unto 
Moses, when he had made an end of communing 
with him on Mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, 
tables of stone written with the finger of God." 

Here, possibly, had the Israelites been faithful 
to the Covenant into which they had entered 4 , the 
Mosaic Law might have terminated. " When," 
however, " the people saw that Moses delayed to 
come down out of the mount, the people gathered 
themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto 
him, Up, make us gods which shall go before us; 
for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up 
out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is be- 
come of him." Aaron weakly yielded to the im- 
pious demand, and the issue was the sin of the 
golden calf. " And they said, These be thy gods, 
O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of 
Egypt." 

Consequent on this fearful lapse into idolatry 
3 Exod. xxiv. 18. 4 Chap. xxiv. 7. 



302 A DAY FOE A YEAR, [PART II. 

is one remarkable result too prominent to escape 
observation, viz. the substitution of the tribe of 
Levi to minister before the Lord in the stead of the 
firstborn. In the further delineation of the Divine 
code connected with this tribe, a highly elaborate 
ceremonial is superadded to the earlier ordi- 
nances. We know indeed that all these were for 
types and shadows of better things to come. Yet 
it may be that Jehovah, witnessing the stubborn- 
ness of the hearts of his people, leavened as they 
still were with recollections of the idolatrous splen- 
dour of Egyptian ceremonial with which they had 
been so long familiarized — ordained, less in com- 
passion to their weakness, than in anger at their 
sin, those burdensome legal purifications and rigor- 
ously minute observances, which we seek for in 
vain in the earlier portion of the institute 5 . 

These remarks may tend to elucidate that pas- 
sage in Acts xv. 10, where St. Peter, speaking to 
his countrymen of the Mosaic Law, — a gift from 
the Creator to his creature, — designates it as a yoke, 
which " neither they nor their fathers were able to 
bear 6 ." 

5 I would not say that these augmentations of the Mosaic 
code were solely of a punitive character, for with people bent 
upon elaborate externals, as were the Israelites, any stringent 
appropriation by God of the ceremonial of devotion to Himself, 
would be to them as a safeguard against the first approaches to 
idolatry. 

6 See Burkitt's Exposit. Notes; Acts xv. 10; and Eose's 
Parkhurst, voce " Zuyoc." 



CH. IV.] 



A DAY FOR A YEAR. 



303 



Whether or not God did punish the Israelites by 
imposing upon them a ceremonial more burden- 
some than would otherwise have been appointed, 
one thing appears from the discovery of a recent 
writer, who has devoted himself to the study of the 
various divisions of time in use among the ancient 
Egyptians — that between the Israelitish and Egyp- 
tian chronological systems existed a like connotation 
of time. Mr. R. S. Poole, without seeking, so far 
as appears from his pages, to throw light upon any 
of the vexed questions of Prophecy, observes : " The 
following divisions of time were either altogether 
unknown or misapprehended before I published my 
opinions on Egyptian Chronology, and consequently, 
what I have said respecting them is entirely new. 
These are the Tropical Cycle ; the Phoenix Cycle ; 
and all the periods of the Calendar of the Pane- 
gyrics ; namely, the Great Panegyrical Years , 
Months, and Divisions of Months V 

" On innumerable ancient Egyptian monuments 
of all times, from the tombs of the age of the Fourth 
Dynasty at Memphis, to the temples of the Ptolemaic 
and Roman periods, we find mention of religious 
festivals, commonly called by writers on Egyptian 
Archaeology, Panegyries. The hieroglyphic name 
reads c Heb 8 .' Different signs were employed as 

7 Horse Egyptiacse, p. 209. 

8 Quaere, is this a serpentine measure ? The measure being 
a sacred one, and sacred subjects being connected in Egypt with 
the worship of the serpent, the term " Heb," according, as it 



304 



A DAY FOR A YEAR. 



[PART II. 



symbols of different kinds of Panegyries; but the 
name I have just mentioned was the general name 
of the ancient Egyptian religious festivals. The 
Greek text of the Rosetta Stone translates Heb by 
Panegyry, UaviryvpiQ V 

Mr. Poole goes on to say, that "An Egyptian 
civil month is a period containing thirty subdivi- 
sions, viz. days ; therefore, a period containing 
thirty Julian years might be called by the Egyp- 
tians, who supposed those years to be solar, a Great 
Month, agreeably with analogy 1 ." A process of 
observation and reasoning, too long to be inserted 
here, led Mr. Poole to the conclusion, that this con- 
jecture was correct; "that the ancient Egyptians 
had a Great Panegyrical Year of three hundred and 
sixty-live Tropical Years, containing twelve Great 
Panegyrical Months, and five intercalary years, 
corresponding to the five Epagomense of the Yague 
Year. For Tropical," adds Mr. Poole, " I now say 
Julian, being convinced that the Egyptians believed 
the Julian to be a tropical and sidereal year at the 
early period when their Calendar was instituted V 

On turning to Exod. xxiii. 10, 11, and Levit. xxv. 8, 

does, with the old appellation of that reptile, may be thought to 
derive its name from that fruitful source of error. Possibly the 
natural history of the serpent may throw light upon this sub- 
ject, and the fact of its annual change of skin account for the 
peculiar system of a day for a year adopted by the Egyptians. 

9 Horse Egyptiaca?, p. 55. 1 Ibid, p, 55. 

2 Ibid. p. 59. 



CH. IV.] 



A DAY FOR A YEAR. 



305 



&c, we shall see, that although the commandment 
relating to the seventh year of rest occupies a posi- 
tion in that portion of the Law of Moses which was 
delivered prior to the sin of the Golden Calf, days 
of years are peculiar characteristics of that latter 
part following the fearful lapse, which proved in 
so unmistakeable a manner the lingering fondness 
of the Israelites for Egyptian associations. And 
although this last institution appeared a bright 
feature in the Mosaic ritual, connected as it was 
with the year of Jubilee, yet so far as that notation 
is attached to the history of the Jewish people, it 
proved to them, as we have seen, the sacred measure 
of punishment. 

Let us now inquire whether the foregoing re- 
marks may not bear upon the question concerning 
the change of chronological measurement, which we 
have observed to exist between the Prophets Jere- 
miah and Daniel. 

It was from the date given by the Prophet Jere- 
miah that Daniel understood the period of the Baby- 
lonish captivity to be drawing to a close. Now the 
measure employed by the former was a natural one. 
But Daniel, in predicting those phases of Jewish his- 
tory yet to be evolved, had to unfold a series of events 
terminating in the rejection of the promised Messiah. 
If then Egypt be enlisted by the Holy Spirit as a 
type of Antichristianity, what so reasonable as to 
imagine, that those prophetic periods, which are 
connected with that terrible sera of judicial blind- 



306 



A DAY FOR A YEAR. 



[PART II. 



ness, should be measured according to the mode of 
Egyptian sacred computation ? If Egyptian history 
be employed in the service of prophetic symbolism, 
why should not their sacred mode of computation 
be analogously applied? In confirmation of this 
view, it may be urged, that the measure of a day 
for a year is first employed in Holy Scripture at 
the period when Israel, after having been delivered 
from the bondage of Pharaoh, resolved to forsake 
the Lord and return into Egypt. Then it was 
that God said, " after the number of the days in 
which ye searched the land, even forty days, each 
day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even 
forty years." Then it was that God established 
the sacred measure of Egypt, as the measure of the 
punishment of his rebellious people. 

The theory we have suggested may serve to solve 
another difficulty. It has been contended, that if 
the twelve hundred and sixty days, mentioned in 
the Apocalypse, be interpreted on the scale of a 
day for a year, then, as a natural consequence, the 
thousand years spoken of by St. John in Chapter 
xx., should be similarly expanded : in other words, 
had the Holy Spirit intended to designate the 
reign of the saints as a period of only a thousand 
years, " St. John should have described the mil- 
lennium as a thousand days 3 ." 

Nay ; if the line of argument we have pursued be 



3 See Dr. C. Wordsworth's Lectures, p. 67. 



CH. IV.] A DAY FOR A YEAR. 307 

correct, it appears that the measure of a day for a 
year pertains to a season of punishment, of proba- 
tion, and of protracted pilgrimage. Concerning 
the Sabbatism of rest, the Holy Spirit speaks no 
more in parables. Here periods of time return 
to their natural mode of measurement, when, Chris- 
tianity having passed through the deep waters of 
affliction, " the Dragon, that old Serpent, which is 
the Devil, and Satan," shall be bound in the bottom- 
less pit ; and, the reign of the Saints being esta- 
blished on the earth, Christians shall realize those 
unmixed blessings which the absolute dominion of 
Christ in the heart is alone calculated to bestow. 



x 2 



308 



THE BEAST AND HIS EIDER. [PART II. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE BEAST AND HIS RIDER. 

Supposing that theory to be correct which views 
the twelve hundred and sixty days as symbolic of 
as many years, the dissociation of Babylon from 
Egypt, regarding the one as the type of Papal 
Rome, and the other as that of Antichrist, appears 
to be encumbered with a painful difficulty. Al- 
though this difficulty is merely incidental to the 
subject of inquiry, and is connected less with the 
interpretation of Apocalyptic Symbolism than with 
the exposition of its fulfilment, I will not attempt 
to evade the question, but shall venture a few 
observations, not indeed dogmatically, but rather 
by way of suggestion and inquiry; and I cannot 
better introduce the subject than by an extract from 
Dr. M'Caul's Warburtonian Lectures \ 

" In proving that the woman exhibited to St. 
" John was a symbol of the Roman Church, I do 

1 Lecture on Rev. xvii. 5. 



CH. V.] THE BEAST AND HIS RIDER. 309 

" not mean that the Pope is Antichrist. The 
" chapter before us is in itself a sufficient proof 
" that Antichrist is not the head, but the destroyer, 
" of that corrupt communion. Neither, in apply - 
" ing the prophecy to Rome, do I assert any thing 
" so obscure or doubtful as to be incapable of satis- 
" factory proof. 

" It is admitted on all hands that the prophecy 
" is symbolical. Neither Protestant nor Romanist 
" ever imagined that its announcements were to be 
" fulfilled in the history of an individual woman. 
" The obvious grammatical sense is too plain to 
" admit of any such literal interpretation; and the 
" writer intimates more than once that the words 
" are to be understood mystically. In the text he 
" says, £ Mystery, Babylon the great.' In the 9th 
" verse he adds, 1 Here is the mind that hath wis- 
" dom,' and immediately adds a partial interpreta- 
" tion of the symbol by saying, 1 The seven heads 
" are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.' 
" And in the 18th verse he says that the woman 
" described represents 4 that great city, which 
" reigneth over the kings of the earth.' It would, 
" therefore, be scarcely consistent to take the word 
" Babylon literally, even if the things predicated of 
" the subject of the prophecy could be referred to 
" that ancient city, which is impossible. The 
" author himself tells us, in the verse just referred 
a to, that he was speaking of the great city, which 
" in his own days ruled over the kings of the earth; 



310 



THE BEAST AND HIS RIDER. [PART II. 



" whereas the literal Babylon, far from having any 
" dominion, was then a desolation. This last par- 
" ticular is equally conclusive against the exposition 
' which makes Babylon to stand for the congrega- 
" tion of the wicked. St. John is speaking of a 
" particular city, whose geographical position and 
" universal empire are so accurately described as to 
" agree to but one city in the world. The city 
u whose wall encompassed the seven hills, and 
u which claimed an empire co-equal with the limits 
" of the earth, cannot easily be mistaken. Jewish 
" Rabbis and Christian Fathers, Romanists and 
" Protestants, all agree that Babylon is Rome. 
" Some few of the Popish interpreters attempt a 
" different exposition ; but the more respectable, 
" not excepting even the Jesuits, Bellarmine and 
" a Lapide, admit that Rome is the subject of the 
" prophecy. So far then the prediction con- 
" fessedly announces the destinies of the eternal 
" city. But whether Rome heathen, Rome Papal, 
" or Rome Antichristian, or Rome absolute, in- 
u eluding all three, be spoken of, is a matter of 
" controversy. Romanists adopt either the first 
" and third supposition, or both together, and in 
" some respects the history of heathen Rome agrees 
a with the prophetic delineation. She was idola- 
" trous, and reigned over the kings of the earth, as 
" is here asserted; but a more close examination of 
" the prophecy shows, that either interpretation is 
u untenable. In the first place, it is not of heathen 



CH. V.] 



THE BEAST AND HIS EIDER. 



311 



" Rome that the Apostle speaks. This is evident 
" from the great surprise at what he saw. If we 
" suppose that the angel exhibited to his view 
" heathen Rome in the form of an adulterous per- 
" secuting woman, possessed of great dominion, 
" what was there in this to excite that profound 
" astonishment which he expresses in the words, 
" 4 When I saw her I wondered with great admira- 
tion?' Heathen Rome did not compel other 
" nations to embrace her creed. St. John knew 
" that Rome was idolatrous — he felt that she was 
" persecuting — he saw that she was in possession of 
" extended empire. There was, therefore, nothing 
" in this to astonish. Had the angel exhibited to 
" him Rome converted from heathenism, the pro- 
a fessing See of St. Peter, the centre of the Church's 
u unity, the mother and mistress of all Churches, 
" this might have astonished the Apostle, who had 
u seen the fierceness of her opposition to Chris- 
" tianity; but to be told that she was idolatrous, 
" persecuting, and supreme, could produce no emo- 
" tion of the kind. It could not, "therefore, be 
" heathen Rome which he saw. And this argument 
" is confirmed by the account of the total destruc- 
" tion which follows, not now to speak of the seven- 
" headed beast and the ten kings. Heathen Rome 
" suffered no such overwhelming catastrophe as is 
" here described ; but was, on the contrary, con- 
u verted to Christianity, and attained a glory and a 



312 THE BEAST AND HIS RIDER. [PART II. 

" dominion in no wise inferior to that which she 
" had before possessed. 

" Some Romanist writers have felt this difficulty, 
" and therefore add, that what Rome was before 
" the time of Cons tan tine, it is again to become at 
" the end of the world : that it will forsake Chris- 
" tianity and the Vicar of Christ, that its name 
" shall again be Babylon, and that then it shall be 
" destroyed. But this interpretation, if true, would 
" be as fatal to Roman pretension as that adopted 
" by Protestants, for it not only implies the open 
" and formal apostasy of the inhabitants of the 
" Papal See, and, therefore, some gross misconduct 
" and carelessness of the shepherd to whose care 
" they had been entrusted, but expressly declares 
" that the place of St. Peter's chair is itself to be 
" destroyed. Now, if there be no city of Rome, 
u there can be no Bishop of Rome ; and, therefore, 
" St. Peter's primacy, the apostolic chair, must 
" come to an end; and if there be a primacy at all, 
u it must belong to the Bishop of some other See. 
" But the interpretation is manifestly opposed to 
u the whole context. It supposes this great Roman 
" apostasy and persecution and supremacy to take 
u place in the time of Antichrist, which is plainly 
" impossible, for this simple reason, that there 
u cannot be two supremacies, nor two universal 
u monarchies, nor two dominant religions, at one 
u and the same time. The Apostle expressly tells 



CH. V.] THE BEAST AND HIS RIDER. 313 

" us, in the 13th chapter, that the beast, i. e. Anti- 
" christ, is to attain universal dominion; that all 
" whose names are not written in the Lamb's book 
" of life are to worship him. If so, it is impossible 
" that Rome, with whom, as we are told in this 
" 17th chapter, Antichrist and his ten kings are at 
" enmity, should at the same time possess the same 
" power, and the same idolatrous supremacy. The 
"Apostle says (ver. 16), 4 The ten horns which 
" thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the 
" whore, and make her desolate and naked, and 
" shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire. For 
" God hath put it into their hearts to fulfil his will, 
" and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the 
u beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.' 
" From these words it is plain that Antichrist and 
u his auxiliary kings are to oppose Rome, and 
" execute upon her God's righteous judgments, a 
" state of things utterly incompatible with a supre- 
" macy, either political or religious, such as is here 
" described. It cannot, therefore, be of Rome in 
" the time of Antichrist, that the Apostle is 
" speaking. 

" Ifj then, as we have shown, Rome be the subject 
" of the prophecy, and yet what is here said cannot 
u be applied to Pagan Rome nor to Antichristian 
" Rome exclusively, it necessarily follows that it 
" does apply to Papal Rome, or more properly, that 
" it depicts the destinies of Rome from the days of 



314 THE BEAST AND HIS RIDER. [PART II 




" the Apostles down to the period of her utter and 
" final destruction." 

In considering the positions contained in the 
above extract we are encountered by the following 
difficulty. The prophetic periods of three years 
and a half, forty-two weeks, and 1260 days, 
either synchronize, or are consecutive, or partly 
synchronize and partly succeed each other. But 
if Babylon and the Beast cannot be contempo- 
raneously supreme, and the downfal of the 
former yet remains to be accomplished, terrible 
indeed is the vista stretching into the future. For 
it should be observed, that the period of 1260 years 
is affixed to the destinies of the Beast : " Power was 
given him to continue forty and two months." The 
inference would then almost seem to be that, after 
the destruction of Babylon, a protracted period of 
suffering still awaits the Church in the form of an 
Antichristian confederacy leagued against the Faith, 
and for many successive centuries prevailing 
against it. 

In the hope and belief that such is not the case, 
let us consider whether Prophecy, when carefully 
examined, will not sanction our escape from so 
lamentable a conclusion. 

I have already remarked that a period of 1260 
years pertains to the Beast. I would now farther 
direct attention to the fact that a similar period is 
not attached to the woman, or at any rate only by 



CH. V.] THE BEAST AND HIS RIDER. 315 

implication. It is a circumstance not sufficiently 
noticed that the mystic numbers are associated with 
the nature and existence of the Beast, and it is only 
as she is connected with him that the period of the 
woman's domination can be determined. Indeed, 
the great feature of this portion of the Apocalypse 
is the history of the Beast, that of the woman being 
introduced only by way of episode. The expres- 
sions, " Here is wisdom," and " Here is the mind 
that hath wisdom," both have reference to the 
Beast. The sacred seer is narrating and amplify- 
ing the history of the fourth beast whose coming 
had been foretold by Daniel, and the prophetic 
voice of that Prophet is here re-echoed in the 
sublime predictions of the Apostle. The fact is, 
the great difficulty is not connected with the woman, 
but with the Beast which carries her ; and herein is 
the wisdom required, to discover the name of the 
Beast, and to interpret his symbolism. In this 
consists probably the chief difficulty of the Apoca- 
lypse. 

And as it is to the ten-horned Beast, and not to 
the woman who sits upon him, that the number 
1260 properly applies, so is it to the Pope when the 
three horns have fallen before him, and he has 
become a horn on the head of the Beast, that the 
time, times, and half a time, are assigned. Strange 
that both the 1260 and 666 should pertain to the 
Beast, the one revealing his name, the other com- 
prehending the duration of his power. Probably, 



316 THE BEAST AND HIS RIDER. [PART II. 

then, the thirty and the forty-five days may also 
appertain peculiarly to him, and designate some 
remarkable periods in his awful career. Thus in 
Dan. vii. 12, the prolongation of life for a season 
and time, whatever it may signify, is predicted of 
the three other Beasts which he beheld in his 
vision : so entirely are these mystic measures 
linked with the Bestial symbolism. Now, if we 
bear in mind Poole's observations on the measure- 
ment of the great Panegyrical year, and couple wdth 
it a fact, to be enlarged on hereafter, that the nota- 
tion of names by numbers was an Egyptian custom, 
if not of Egyptian origin, we shall be led to the 
conclusion that both the mystery of the name and 
that of the period of the Beast are symbolized 
according to Egyptian usage ; and Egypt being, as 
we shall presently demonstrate, the type of the 
Beast, a new propriety is here developed. 

Having ascertained that the mystic period apper- 
tains to the Beast, let us proceed to examine more 
closely the description of the powers given to him, 
and of the period, or periods, over which those 
powers are said to extend. On turning to the 13th 
chapter of the Revelation, it will be observed that 
several distinct grants of power are conferred upon 
the Beast. 

First. The Dragon gives him his power, and his 
seat, and great authority. He makes him his dele- 
gate on earth. (Ver. 2.) 

Secondly. He resuscitates him, and reinstates 



CH. V.] 



THE BEAST AND HIS RIDER. 



317 



him in the position he had lost when he received 
his deadly wound. (Yer. 3, 4.) 

Thirdly. He bestows on him an arrogant and 
blasphemous mouth. (Yer. 5.) 

Fourthly. He confers the power of continuance 
or action over a period of forty and two months. 
(Yer. 5.) 

Fifthly. Yictory is given unto him over the 
saints; — the power of a conqueror. (Yer. 7.) 

Sixthly. As a consequent probably, universal 
sovereignty. (Yer. 7.) 

Seventhly. In augmentation of ver. 4, almost 
universal divine honours. (Yer, 8.) 

To one of these grants alone, be it observed, is 
attached a chronological period — the grant of con- 
tinuance or action fSoflrj avrw s^ovo'ia Troirjaai fxrjvag 

reava paKovra Suo, or, as it is translated in our ver- 
sion, u power was given unto him to continue forty 
and two months 2 ." The idea conveyed in the mar- 
ginal reading, " power was given him to make war" 
seems to be borrowed 3 from the subsequent grant, 
from which it is dissociated by the intervening 
verse. The two grants appear perfectly distinct, 
as is evident from the fact stated in ver. 6, that, 
availing himself of the extent of the power pre- 

2 Dr. Christopher Wordsworth, in his translation of the 
Apocalypse, renders the passage " and power was given unto 
him to act." 

3 It should be stated, however, that the reading is 7r6\ejJov 
Troirjaai in many texts. 



318 THE BEAST AND HIS RIDER. [PART II. 

viously accorded to him, " He opened his mouth in 
blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, 
and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in 
heaven." In truth, the power of the Beast after 
the healing of his deadly wound is that of progres- 
sive augmentation; beginning from his resuscita- 
tion, and advancing, through successive grades, to 
almost universally acknowledged divinity. But, in 
this progress, some arresting obstacle seems to 
interpose. For he needed power, and had power 
given him simply to exist or to act for forty and 
two months. Then follows the next grant : " And it 
was given unto him to make war with the saints, and 
to overcome them." But, it will be asked, is not 
this last grant included in the period of 1260 years, 
and co-extensive with it ? Nay, they are not con- 
temporaneous, but consecutive. How is this to be 
proved ? From the history of the two witnesses in 
the 11th chapter, of whom it is said, they had 
power given unto them of God to "prophesy a 
thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed 
in sackcloth." And " when they shall have finished 
their testimony, the Beast that ascendeth out of the 
bottomless pit shall make war against them, and 
shall overcome them, and kill them." The power of 
the Beast, then, to make war, does not exist 
throughout the entire period of 1260 years, but is 
imparted at its close 4 . The parallelism between 
xi. 7 and xiii. 7 is very striking in the original. 
4 During the 1260 years, the power accorded to the witnesses 



Gil. V.] 



THE BEAST AND HIS RIDER. 



319 



To Orjpiov . . 7rotrj(X£i TroXe/nov psr clvtwv Kai vikt\- 
gu avrovQ. 

Kat e^66rj avrw iroX^fxov iroir)(jai fiera twv ay'icov 
Kai VlKT)Gai avrovg . 

The interval between the gift of the power of 
continuance, combined with that of uttering blas- 
phemies, and the power of making war, is, as I have 
remarked, brought prominently into notice, inas- 
much as the sacred seer beholds the Beast profiting 
by, and perpetrating the former, before he is en- 
trusted with the latter. 

Next, as the powers we have been considering 
are not contemporaneous, but consecutive, so also 
appear to be those which follow. The witnesses 
having been overcome and slain, in other words the 
religious opposing element having been removed, 
" power was given him " (the Beast) " over all 
kindreds, and tongues, and nations. And all that 
dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose 
names are not written in the book of life of the 
Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." 

is to prophesy, that conferred upon the Beast is to blaspheme ; 
the power in the former case being derived from God, and in 
the latter from the Dragon. 

5 The exercise, indeed, of this latter gift (that of making war) 
previous to the investiture of the Beast with those fuller powers 
which follow, is not noticed in chap. xiii. Why ? Probably, 
because the omission is supplied from chap. xi. 7. And so, 
conversely, the worship of the Beast is not noticed in chap, xi., 
that omission being supplied in chap. xiii. 8. So delicate and 
so intricate is the structure of the Apocalypse ! 



320 



THE BEAST AND HIS RIDER. [PART II. 



This, I imagine, is the reign of Antichrist, which 
it is supposed by the Church will last for the period 
of three years and a half, during which the dead 
bodies of the two witnesses " shall lie in the street 
of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom 
and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified;" 
when " they of the people and kindreds and tongues 
and nations shall see their dead bodies, and shall not 
suffer them to be put in graves," — pjjju«^o, — (see 
Luke xxiii. 53, xxiv. 1), as was the body of Christ 
(possibly in order to test in the most unmistakeable 
manner the reality of their predicted resurrection) ; 
and the worshippers of Antichrist that dwell upon 
the earth " shall rejoice over them, and make merry, 
and shall send gifts one to another, because these two 
Prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth." 

And the close of that terrible reign, I imagine, 
shall be at the end of those three and a half days — 
(years) — when the Spirit of life from God shall enter 
into their dead bodies — that Spirit of holiness by 
which Christ Himself, their great Lord and Master, 
was raised from the dead — and they shall stand 
upon their feet, and great fear shall fall upon them 
which shall see them ; and they shall hear a great 
voice from Heaven saying unto them, Come up 
hither, and they shall ascend up to Heaven in a 
cloud {the cloud, ti)v vtQsXriv), as Christ also 
ascended (Acts i. 0), and their enemies shall 
behold them. And the same hour there shall be a 
great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city 



CH. V.] 



THE BEAST AND HIS RIDER. 



321 



shall fall, and in the earthquake shall be slain of 
men seven thousand, and the remnant shall be 
affrighted, and give glory to the God of Heaven 6 . 

Subsequently, then, to the death of the two wit- 
nesses — in the interval between their death and 
resurrection — Antichrist shall be worshipped 7 ! 
How is this fearful apostasy effected ? St. John 
proceeds to inform us 8 . " I beheld another Beast 
coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns 
like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon, and he 
exerciseth all the power of the first Beast before 
him, and causeth the earth and them that dwell 
therein to worship the first Beast, whose deadly 
wound was healed," &c. According to this state- 
ment, the advent of the two-horned Beast is yet 
future, and I candidly confess that no commentary 
I have met with has satisfied my mind that this 
pseudo-prophet has yet appeared, or, at any rate, 
that he has hitherto exercised his full vocation as 
misleader of the nations ; — all interpretations of this 
portion of the Apocalypse seeming to me to fall 
short of the symbolism employed. 

On the characteristics of the second Beast, I shall 
briefly remark that he is represented by the sacred 
seer through the medium of a complex symbolism, 
— his power, as though simulating that of Christ ; 

6 See Bev. xi. 5. 7 — 13. See also the following verses, 
which have been supposed to close this portion of the Apocalypse, 
1 His phases are a servant, a conqueror, a God. 
8 Chap. xiii. 11. 

Y 



322 THE BEAST AND HIS RIDER. [PART II. 

his teaching, as emanating from the Father of lies ; 
— " He had two horns as a lamb, and he spake as a 
dragon. 11 Of these two horns somewhat may he 
learned, prohahly, from the context. In verse 13, 
he exhibits a characteristic of Elias 9 , making " fire 
come down from heaven on the earth in the sight 
of men;" and in verses 16, 17, he enforces an or- 
dinance somewhat similar to that enjoined by Moses 
before the miraculous escape of the Israelites at the 
Red Sea 10 , causing all, both small and great, rich 
and poor, free and bond, to receive the mark, or the 
name, or the number of the name of the Beast, in 
their right hand, or in their forehead. And this 
he effects through the instrumentality of spurious 
miracles performed before the Beast, as the magicians 
" did in like manner with their enchantments" before 
Pharaoh. His appearance, then, would counterfeit 
a mission from above ; his doctrine is an emanation 
from the Devil. His two horns, moreover, — the 
emblems of his pretended power, — would seem con- 
nected with the Jewish Lawgiver and Prophets. He 
comes in the power of Moses and Elias. His claims, 
however, are but fictitious, as is evident from the 
expression used by St. John, "He deceiveth them 
that dwell on the earth by the means of those mira- 
cles which he had power to do;" reference being 
here obviously made to the powers of enchantment. 
It is remarkable that these pretended credentials 

1 Kings xviii. 38. 2 Kings i. 10. 12. Exod. xiii. 9. 



CH. V.] 



THE BEAST AND HIS RIDER. 



323 



exhibited by the two-horned Beast, elsewhere styled 
the false Prophet, bear a resemblance to those verit- 
able powers exercised by the two faithful witnesses, 
who, until slain by the ten-horned Beast, had pro- 
phesied in sackcloth. These possess some of the 
characteristics of Elias and Moses, for " if any man 
will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, 
and devoureth their enemies." . . . " These have 
power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of 
their prophecy : and have power over waters to turn 
them to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues, 
as often as they will \." Possibly the two-horned 
Beast, or false Prophet, will arise as a punishment for 
slaying the faithful witnesses. Truth being violently 
silenced and rejected, God may permit an incarna- 
tion of falsehood, that men should believe a lie. 
The Jews believed not Moses and Elias when they 
testified of Christ ; there may yet arise a pseudo- 
combination of the Lawgiver and Prophet, who 
shall induce a belief in Antichrist. 

These considerations enable us to revert with 
greater advantage to the period during which it is 
said of the Beast that "power was given unto 
him to continue." I cannot but think this the 
time of Babylon's supremacy, the period during 
which the Beast is bestridden by the Harlot, and 

1 Bev. xi. 5, 6. 2 Kings i. 10. 12. 1 Kings xvii. 1. James v. 
17, 18. Exod. vii. 19 ; ix. 14. See, too, Numb. xvi. 35, whereby 
an allusion to the peculiar prerogatives of Aaron may be in- 
tended. 

Y 2 



324 



THE BEAST AND HIS RTDEK. [PART IT. 



acts, not on his own impulse, nor in pursuance of 
his own designs, hut in subserviency to her 2 . The 
prophetic vision exhibits the apostate Church at 
the culminating point of her unholy sway ; depicting 
her, not as she existed during the whole 1260 
years, but in the most exalted position to which she 
attained in the course of that eventful period. 
" The Woman," says J. E. Clarke, " in her drunken 
glory, is the representative of the Latin Church, in 
her highest state of Antichristian prosperity, for she 
sits upon the scarlet-coloured Beast, a striking 
emblem of her complete domination over the secular 
Roman Empire. The state of the Latin Church, 
from the commencement of the fourteenth century 
to the time of the Reformation, may be considered 
that which corresponds to this prophetic description 
in the most literal and extensive meaning of the 
words, for during this period she was at her 

2 This has been exactly the policy of the Church of Rome 
with regard to the temporal power. Holding the administra- 
tive, she has delegated to her vassal the responsibility of the 
executive, more especially in the article of the infliction of 
capital punishment for rejection of her spiritual dogmas. 
Having tried and condemned the so-called heretics according to 
her ecclesiastical code, she has ever handed over her hapless 
victims to the temporal power to be burnt at the stake, with 
the disgusting pseudo-charitable entreaty that their blood might 
be spared. She had already too perfectly indoctrinated her 
vassal in her tenets to doubt of her cruel intentions being car- 
ried out to their fullest extent. During the 1260 years the Beast 
destroys at the bidding of his Eider. 



CH. V.] 



THE BEAST AND HIS RIDER. 



325 



highest pitch of worldly grandeur and temporal 
authority V 

I have remarked that the period of 1260 years is 
represented by St. John as pertaining to the Beast. 
" Power was given unto him to continue forty and 
two months." By implication, however, should the 
statements in the earlier portion of this chapter be 
correct, that period is affixed also to the duration 
of the Woman's power ; for during that term, the 
two are presented to us in correlation, as " the 
Beast and his Rider." The persecution of the 
Saints, indeed, has not been so prolonged, but the 
limit of the Woman's bloody and drunken sway is 
not specified in the passage before us. The expres- 
sion in chap. xvii. 6, "And I saw the Woman 
drunken with the blood of the saints," supposes this 

3 " Cardinal Bellarinine, one of the most distinguished mem- 
bers of the Jesuitical Order, propounded the theory, that the 
Pope has no temporal power by divine right ; but that by reason 
of the universal spiritual power which he possesses by divine right, 
he has supreme authority in temporal matters (in ordine ad 
spiritualia), with a view to a spiritual end : and that the spiritual 
ends of the Church cannot be obtained, except the Bishop of 
Eome have power to depose Kings, and dispose of their king- 
doms, if he holds it to be expedient to do so." — "Words- 
worth's Letters to M. Gondon, Sequel, p. 54. "They" (the 
Jesuits) " claimed for the Church an unlimited supremacy over 
the State." — lb. p. 60. "Eebellion on their part is not trea- 
son, because they are not subjects of the Civil Power" — lb. 
p. 55. See also ib. p. 61, and Bishop Butler's opinion, ib. p. 
257. 



326 THE BEAST AND HIS RIDER. [PART II. 

dark feature in her career to be subsequent to the 
commencement of her predominancy, and con- 
sequently of a less protracted character. 

In opposition to this remark, the following objec- 
tion may be urged. In Daniel, chap. vii. 25, we 
read of the little horn, that " he shall speak great 
words against the Most High, and shall wear out 
the saints of the Most High, and think to change 
times and laws; and they shall be given into his 
hand until a time, times, and the dividing of a 
time." If, therefore, the little horn designate the 
Pope, the period of persecution is accurately deter- 
mined. To this I reply, that in Acts vii. 6 (quoted 
in a former chapter), it is said of Abraham : " God 
spake on this wise, That his seed should sojourn in 
a strange land, and that they should bring them 
into bondage, and entreat them evil four hundred 
years." Yet the 400 years, as we have seen, refer, 
not to the period of the bondage of the Israelites, 
but to the term of their sojourn. And although 
many imagine that their abode in Egypt lasted 
during the entire 400 years, not one has supposed 
that slavery and suffering were their portion during 
that protracted period. The contrary is indeed 
clearly stated. It was, says St. Stephen, " when the 
time of the promise drew nigh," that " another king 
arose, which knew not Joseph, who dealt subtilly 
with our kindred, and evil entreated our fathers." 
Interpreting Rev. xvii. 6, and Dan. vii. 25, analo- 
gously to this passage, it is enough that persecution 



CH. V.] THE BEAST AND HIS RIDER. 327 

be a prominent characteristic of the Woman or of 
the Little Horn, and needs not that that peculiar 
feature should pervade the whole period of the 
power of either ; that period referring rather to the 
limits of their respective sway, than to the charac- 
teristics by which it is distinguished. The objec- 
tion, therefore, urged by Mr. Burgh 4 , that, admit- 
ting the domination of the Woman or of the Little 
Horn, we are uncertain whether the saints are as 
yet under their persecution or not, falls to the 
ground. It is enough if, " for six centuries and 
more, the Church of Rome has been the mother 
and mistress of all harlot churches, drunken with 
the blood of saints, and besotted with a senseless 
idolatry, to be abhorred of all faithful Christians 5 ." 

I would now observe, however, that the continu- 
ance of the Woman's existence, although implied in 
the history of the Beast, is not necessarily co- 
existent with that of the Little Horn. 

The impression seems general that the Beasts 
described in Rev. xiii. and xvii. and in Dan. vii. 
are, although viewed under different aspects and 
circumstances, all three identical. The Beast is 
represented at different periods, and under complex 
forms ; — a complex symbolism being needed to 
typify a complex reality. Such is the triple union 
of the Beast and Babylon, and the Little Horn. 

4 Lecture on the Book of Bevelation, p. 254. 

5 M'Caul's Warburt. Lect., 2iid Series, Lect. 6, p. 120. 



328 THE BEAST AND HIS RIDER. [PART II. 

So distinct are these, and yet so closely are they 
linked together, that the Beast becomes first the 
servant, then the destroyer of the Woman ; and 
that by reason of the great words spoken by the 
Little Horn, Daniel "beheld till the Beast was 
slain, and his body destroyed and given to the 
burning flame." 

A question then arises as to the chronological 
order under which these different aspects of the 
Beast should be arranged. To me it would appear 
that their succession should be as follows : — first 
the Beast, as represented in Rev. xvii., carrying the 
Woman; next, the Beast in Dan. vii., bearing on 
his head the little horn ; lastly the Beast in 
Rev. xiii., having on his head the ten crowned 
horns. With regard to Rev. xiii. and xvii. little 
doubt can be entertained. In chap, xvii., where 
the woman is represented as controlling the Beast, 
the ten horns have no crowns) "as yet, they have 
received no kingdom," ver. 12. In chap. xiii. the 
horns are encircled with crowns; at that period, 
therefore, the ten kings have received power 
(eZovalav) one hour, or at one time, with the Beast. 

Now, when is it that the ten horns receive this 
power? In the 18th verse it might seem to be 
implied that their power as kings had been con- 
ferred prior to the Woman's sovereignty. For it is 
there said : " The Woman which thou sawest is that 
great city, which reigneth over the kings of the 
earth." According to this, the period at which 



CH. V.] THE BEAST AND HIS RIDER. 329 

they receive power as kings " one hour with the 
Beast," would be that, when he has conferred upon 
him the power of continuance. But this can 
scarcely be the case ; for it will be observed, that 
during the period of the Harlot's drunken sway the 
horns have as yet no crowns. See chap. xvii. ver. 3. 
Again, whereas the kings of the earth, over whom 
the Woman reigneth, shall bewail her, and lament 
for her, when they see the smoke of her burning, 
the ten kings which are upon the head of the Beast 
are they which shall effect her fall, and make her 
desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and 
burn her with fire. It is, therefore, manifestly 
impossible to identify the kings of chap. xvii. 18, 
and xviii. 9, with those of xvii. 12. 16. It follows 
that the period at which these last receive power, 
" one hour," or at one time, with the Beast, must 
be that at which he dethrones the Woman, and 
makes war with the saints, and overcomes them. 
In that war the ten crowned horns appear to join, 
and in it they are ultimately overthrown 6 . 

If these conjectures be correct, and the little 
horn in Dan. vii. symbolize the Pope, we can 
scarcely err in assigning to the Beast, as there 
portrayed, a position between those in which we 
have already surveyed him. For it should be 
observed that this little horn on the head of the 
Beast, if designating the Pope, represents him less 



6 Compare chaps, xvii. 14 and xi. 11, 12, 13. 



330 THE BEAST AND HIS RIDER. [PART II. 

in his ecclesiastical than in his political character. 
We behold him, not merely as exercising dominion 
and government in spiritual things, but invested 
with temporal power in addition. He is a horn on 
the head of the Beast. And under this aspect, the 
appropriateness of the expression, " a little horn," 
is manifest; for the Pope has never held a high 
position as temporal ruler, notwithstanding he has 
" a mouth speaking great things." 

To the foregoing arrangement, however, I must 
append the following remark. When I speak of 
the Beast as carrying the Woman, I do not point to 
that period during which he is represented in the 
act of bearing the Harlot in the summit of her 
power, for that period was subsequent to the 
acquisition of the Pope's temporal sway; but I look 
rather to the commencement of the predominancy 
of the Woman, and to the rise of the Little Horn, 
the former having assumed her seat on the Beast 
before the Head of the Romish Church had become 
possessed of any territorial dominion. Peter's 
power had been grasped at by priestly arrogance, 
and sanctioned by imperial folly, before Peter's 
patrimony had been even thought of. And for this 
reason, I am inclined to think that many in the 
present day are too precipitate in pronouncing the 
1260 years, to which the sway of the Pope is limited, 
as having so nearly approached their close. For 
that period, as connected with the little horn on 
the head of the Beast, is assigned to the Roman 



CH. V.] 



THE BEAST AND HIS RIDER. 



331 



Pontiff, apparently as a temporal prince, and not as 
the mere head of ecclesiastical power ; and, whereas 
the title of Universal Bishop was conferred on him 
by the Emperor Phocas, a.d. 606, it was not until 
a.d. 756 that he was invested with any temporalities. 

Viewing the Beasts of Daniel and St. John 
as identical, the prophetic vision exhibits the 
Roman Empire, subsequently to its rise from the 
sea, under three separate phases : firstly, as 
tyrannized over by a Church " fallen from her first 
love :" secondly, as affected by the domination of 
the Pope, when he had succeeded in combining 
temporal power with spiritual rule : thirdly, as it 
will hereafter exist in the days of the last mani- 
festation of Antichrist. 

It appears, then, that although a period of 1260 
years pertains by implication to the Woman, and is 
directly assigned by Daniel to the existence of the 
Little Horn, yet these two periods do not necessarily 
synchronize. In truth, the reverse would seem the 
more probable alternative. 

We are too apt to identify the existence of the 
Romish Church with that of the Pope as a temporal 
prince, whereas they are in reality two distinct 
entities. The Church of Rome has existed, and 
could again exist in her full development, apart 
from the temporalities of its Spiritual Head; and 
the Pontiff, even if no longer retaining his title of 
Vicar of Christ, might hold sway as a temporal 
ruler, were the Church of Rome swept from the face 



332 THE BEAST AND HIS RIDEli. [PART II. 

of the earth. In truth, many of the friends of the 
Papacy in the present day would gladly dissociate 
the temporal and spiritual powers, supposing that 
were the Pope freed from the onerous burden of 
temporal government, his spiritual office and dignity 
would be better appreciated and more generally 
acknowledged. It is the mal- administration of 
secular affairs which is thought by many of the 
followers of that faith to bring so much odium upon 
the Papacy 7 . 

And here I may observe, that the view we are 
taking accounts for the difference apparent in the 
characteristics of the Beast as delineated by Daniel 
and St. John. The vision of the former, having 
reference to temporal empires to be developed in 
after ages, exhibits that of Rome as affected by the 
jurisdiction of the Pope in his character of temporal 
ruler; whereas the Apocalypse, bearing upon spi- 
ritual empire, records the departure of the Romish 
Church from " the faith once delivered to the 
saints," and her subsequent overthrow by Anti- 
christ. Next, the expressions "was, and is not, 
and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go 
into perdition," and " was, and is not, and yet is 8 ," 
as applied to the Beast, should not, I imagine, be 
considered as parallel passages, but as indicating 
two distinct periods of time. During the sway 
exercised by the Scarlet Woman, " he is not, and 

7 See " La Papaute a Jerusalem," by L'Abbe Michon. 

8 Eev. xvii. 8. 



CH. V.] THE BEAST AND HIS RIDER. 



333 



yet is." He exists, not indeed as heretofore in his 
dominant, but in a subjective character; he is the 
agent of the Woman, under her control and govern- 
ment. On the fall of his intoxicated Eider, he 
ceases to be a mere instrument, and regains the 
independence he had exercised prior to the period 
of his servitude. 

But it may be asked, although Babylon be not 
Antichrist, is she not Antichristian ? Confessedly 
thus far. If, so long as she relied on the wings of 
the Great Eagle for support she was Christian, in 
proportion as she made the Beast her stay, she 
rendered herself Antichristian. Babylon resting on 
Egypt symbolizes Superstition as having first ob- 
tained the mastery over, and then as being sup- 
ported by Paganism. The picture suggested to the 
mind is the Pagan Poman Empire, the Beast — 
carrying Papal Pome, the Pider. Pope Innocent 
the Third unwittingly bordered upon the truth, not 
when he proclaimed himself " the Yicar of Christ/' 
but when he added (remarkably enough) " the God 
of Pharaoh V 

9 The passage in which the Pope thus speaks of himself is as 
follows : — 

"The Vicar of Jesus Christ, the successor of Peter, the 
anointed of the Lord, the God of Pharaoh, short of God, beyond 
man, less than God, greater than man, who judges all men, is 
judged by no man" — Innocent III. Serm. 2. De Consecr. 
Pontif. Quoted from Hussey on " The Eise of the Papal 
Power," p. 199. 



334 THE BEAST AND HIS RIDER. [PART II. 

When Paganism had succumbed to the influence 
of Christianity, it was to be presumed that the 
Christianized Roman Empire, having enrolled itself 
as the servant of Christ, would have been continu- 
ally urged by the agent which had been instru- 
mental in effecting its conversion, to throw all the 
weight which it possessed into the scale of truth, 
and to put forth every energy for the upholding and 
propagation of the Christian Faith. Strange that 
through the instigation of the converting element 
itself, that empire should be turned aside from so 
sacred a duty, and induced to become an instrument 
in the hands of the Romish Church in persecuting 
that very faith which it should have been its privi- 
lege to defend ! The Church of Rome acted as did 
the Israelites of old by the nations which God had 
delivered over to them, and with similar results. 
God said, " Ye shall make no league with the in- 
habitants of this land ; ye shall throw down their 
altars : but ye have not obeyed my voice : why have 
ye done this ? Wherefore I also said, I will not 
drive them out from before you ; but they shall be 
as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a 
snare unto you 1 ." She put her trust in the Beast, 
and the Beast will be her destroyer. 

It seems to have been the peculiar and startling 
sin of the Church of Rome, that having seated 
herself on the throne of the Pagan Beast, she forgot 



1 Judg. ii. 2, 3. 



CM. V.] THE BEAST AND HIS RIDER. 335 

her first love 2 , and instead of rescuing her people 
from the degrading and blasphemous tenets of the 
conquered Dragon, she so framed her system of 
pseudo-Christianity as to plunge them into a Chris- 
tianized Paganism. She transformed the statues of 
heathen deities into the images of Christian Saints, 
and justified, nay compelled, the restoration of that 
very image-worship against which St. John, fore- 
seeing the coming corruption, so earnestly warned 
"the brethren;" closing his first Catholic Epistle 
with those emphatic w r ords, " Little children, keep 
yourselves from idols." 

How exactly does all this correspond with the dif- 
ferent phases of the Church of Kome, as presented to 
us in the Apocalypse : — first, as "a Woman clothed 
with the Sun," borne by " the wings of the great 
eagle ;" — next, as " the Woman arrayed in purple 
and scarlet colour, decked with gold and precious 
stones and pearls," seated " upon a scarlet-coloured 
beast, full of names of blasphemy." 

But St. John opens a yet more extended vista 
of the future, presenting to us certain features con- 
nected with the career of the Beast, when the 
Woman shall be no more : and St. Paul seems to 
point to the same dread reality. 

In 2 Thess. ii. it is distinctly stated that before 
the day of Christ there shall " come a falling away 
first;" and, besides this, also, the revelation of the 



2 Rev. ii. 4. 



336 THE BEAST AND HIS RIDER. [PART II. 

" man of sin." The Apostle says, " The mystery of 
iniquity doth already work: only he who now 
letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. 
And then shall that wicked be revealed" Here are 
two points, the mystery working, and the man of 
sin revealed. It will be remembered, that the 
woman described in Revelations as clothed in scarlet 
and sitting on the Beast, had upon her forehead a 
name written, Mystery. It will also be remembered, 
that after the Angel had cried, saying, " Babylon is 
fallen, is fallen," another angel followed, saying with 
a loud voice, " If any man worship the Beast and 
his image, and receive his mark on his forehead, or 
in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the 
wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture 
into the cup of His indignation." Babylon falls; 
the Beast remains ; he dethrones the harlot whom 
he had so long upborne, and arrogates to himself 
universal worship. The mystery of iniquity makes 
way for the manifestation of the man of sin; the 
downfal of her, whose type is Babylon, heralds the 
rise (shall I say the resurrection ?) of him whose 
type is the monarch of the Exode. Superstition 
succumbs to the power of the Infidel 3 . 

3 Mr. Burgh expresses opinions so much in accordance with 
this view, that, notwithstanding minor differences, I append 
the following extracts : — 

" The wilful king of Daniel, the ' wicked one,' or ' man of 
sin,' of Paul, and the beast in the vision before us, — I maintain 
does not apply to Popery, the character of which is corruption 



CH. V.] 



THE BEAST AND HIS RIDER. 



337 



In a word, we have two evils predicted as pre- 
vening the Day of Christ : — the mystery of iniquity, 
and the revelation of the Man of Sin; first, latent 
sin, or sin in the form of godliness ; then open sin, 

and perversion of truth, in many instances indeed fatal and 
dangerous in the extreme, but not that of daring and open- 
mouthed blasphemy # ." 

" That the symbolic woman means the city of Rome, as mis- 
tress of the Soman Empire, I have distinctly stated ; and that 
' Mystery ' is the name of the city in reference partly, though 
not exclusively, to the period during which it has been the seat 
of the Papacy, I moreover fully admit ; but, it is strange that 
those who apply this title (and apply it exclusively) to Popery, 
should not have perceived that it disproves the application to it, 
made at the same time, and often in the same sentence, by 
those writers, of the titles 1 the Antichrist,' and ' the Man of 
Sin.' For ' the Man of Sin ' is expressly said by the Apostle 
to be the revelation of the mystery of iniquity : — ' For the mys- 
tery of iniquity doth already work; only he who now letteth, 
will let, until he be taken out of the way, and then shall 
that wicked be revealed {fin 0Ka\v(p6fi o -n m) .' Now the words 
' mystery,' and 1 revelation/ or ' Apocalypse,' are directly op- 
posed the one to the other — the former denoting the latent state 
or worhing of that which is destined to a manifestation in due 
time denoted by the latter, as proved by the invariable use of 
the terms in Scripture ; whence it follows that both terms can- 
not at one and the same time apply to the same person, office, 
or system ; or, in other words, the Pope or Popery cannot be, 
at one and the same time, ' the mystery of iniquity,' and ' the 
Man of Sin,' or ' the Antichrist,' — tlie mystery ' and ' the Apo- 
calypse 'of the mystery." (Burgh on " The Book of Revela- 
tion," p. 452. See further.) 



* Burgh on "The Book of Revelation," p. 252. 

Z 



338 THE BEAST AND HIS RIDER. [PART II. 

even him " whose coming is after the working of 
Satan," — u the Wicked, .... whom the Lord shall 
consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall 
destroy with the brightness of His coming :" — the 
enchaining allurements of the scarlet woman, and, 
subsequently to her fall, the awful development of 
him who is emphatically termed The Antichrist. 
Of him St. John speaks as I have portrayed him, 
when he says, " The dragon, that old serpent, called 
the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole 
world," "gave him his power, and his seat, and 
great authority." The antitype of Pharaoh Ame- 
nophis, whose badge and source of power was the 
serpent, — He is the Antichrist. 



CH. VI.] 



THE REMNANT. 



339 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE REMNANT. 

The Woman has escaped from her cruel bondage, 
Pharaoh, that potent instrument in effecting the 
designs of Satan, having been overwhelmed in 
"the mighty waters." Yet, although the servant 
has perished, his master survives, and remains the 
avowed and inveterate enemy of the Woman during 
the period of her sojourn in the wilderness. So 
too her antitype, she who was " clothed with the 
sun," has accomplished her flight from the face of 
the serpent, and reached the place prepared of 
God, where she is nourished for a time, and times, 
and half a time with water from the rock, and 
bread from heaven. Nevertheless, " the serpent cast 
out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, 
that he might cause her to be carried away of the 
flood 1 ." A new element is now introduced to 
befriend and aid her : " The earth helped the 
woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and 
swallowed up the flood which the Dragon cast out 
of his mouth." 

1 B-ev. xii. 15. 
z 2 



340 



THE REMNANT. 



[PART II. 



A twofold solution presents itself of the sym- 
bolism here employed; the one derived from pro- 
fane records, the other from the page of inspiration. 
I will briefly advert to the first, and proceed to 
consider the second more at large. 

While examining the relics of Egyptian history, 
we have seen reason to suppose that, paralyzed 
by the terrible catastrophe at the Ked Sea, the 
Egyptian nobles fled with the son of the vanquished 
Amenophis, the infant Eamesses-Sesostris, into 
Ethiopia, where he was hospitably entertained by 
the monarch of the country. It is related that 
having attained to manhood, he collected a con- 
siderable army, returned to Egypt, and thence 
poured his hostile swarms upon the provinces of 
Western Asia. Whether by such a step he pur- 
posed to obliterate the deep disgrace sustained by 
his father and his country on the shores of the Ked 
Sea, we know not. Possibly such was the case; 
and it is also probable that the Hycsos tribes, of 
which, in the estimation of the Egyptians, the 
Israelites formed a part, were special objects of the 
royal displeasure. If his aim were to retaliate 
upon the Hebrews the ignominy and dishonour 
they had brought upon his people, his design, what- 
ever the successes which attended his arms, was a 
signal failure. The then inhabitants of Canaan 
may have suffered severely by his prowess, but the 
Israelites were secure from his assaults, in a wilder- 
ness whither no army could follow them; a region 



CH. VI.] 



THE REMNANT. 



341 



described by the prophet Jeremiah as " a land of 
deserts and of pits, a land of drought and of the 
shadow of death, a land that no man passed through, 
and where no man dwelt." The rich plains of 
Asia received and absorbed the mighty flood ; the 
Israelites, perhaps even unconscious of its exist- 
ence, dwelt securelv " under the shadow of the 
Almighty." 

The other solution requires a more extended 
examination ; and, be'ing drawn from the depths of 
Scripture, it claims our peculiar attention. The 
woman is in the wilderness, consequently we na- 
turally turn for light to Sinai. During the period 
of their wanderings, the children of Israel, albeit 
the covenanted people of God, were sorely harassed 
by the "fiery darts" of Satan, who vigorously strove 
to recover the prey which had escaped out of his 
hand. 

Some assault of an analogous description would 
appear to be veiled under the imagery of the flood 
of water, which the dragon ejected out of his mouth. 
So essential is water to the sustentation of natural 
life, that throughout Sacred Writ it is employed as 
a type of spiritual life and grace. So Isa. xliv. 3 : 
" Thus saith the Lord ... I will pour water upon 
him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground : 
I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my bless- 
ing upon thine offspring." And again, calling 
upon his people to embrace the Gospel tidings, he 
exclaims, chap. lv. 1 : " Ho, every one that thirsteth, 
come ye to the waters." Of that water, Christ 



342 



THE REMNANT. 



[PART II. 



Himself says : " The water that I shall give shall 
he a well of water, springing up into everlasting 
life." " If any man thirst, let him come unto me, 
and drink. He that believeth on me, as the Scrip- 
ture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of 
living water. This spake he of the Spirit, which 
they that believe on him should receive V St. Paul 
marks the analogy between things natural and 
things spiritual where he says of the Israelites in the 
wilderness, they " did all drink of the same spiritual 
drink : for they drank of that spiritual Rock that 
followed them : and that Rock was Christ 3 ." 

To these living waters, which flow from Christ 
the Rock of Israel, seems opposed the water which 
was poured out of Satan's mouth as a flood or river, 
(TTora^uoc in the original) to carry away the woman 
who was drinking of the spiritual stream. From 
his lips would flow water, not of life, but of gall, or, 
as it stands in the margin of our Bibles, waters of 
poison 4 ; — " wine, the poison of dragons, and the 
cruel venom of asps V 

2 John iv. 14 ; vii. 37, 38, 39. See also Isa. xii. 3 ; xxxv. 
6, Jer. xvii. 13. Rev. xxi. 6 : xxii. 17. 

3 1 Cor. x. 4. 

4 Jer. viii. 14 ; ix. 15 ; xxiii. 15. Against the root that 
beareth gall and wormwood, the Israelites were warned in the 
last words of Moses, Deut. xxix. 18, by which, says Cruden, 
may be understood " some secret and subtle idolaters, who 
might secretly infect and poison others, by drawing them to 
idolatry." 

5 Deut. xxxii. 33. 



CH. VI.] 



THE REMNANT. 



343 



Of the existence of this deadly stream, and of 
its noxious effects upon the children of Israel in 
the wilderness, we cannot entertain a doubt. It 
affected them from the commencement to the 
termination of their pilgrimage. u Ye have been 
rebellious since the day that I knew you" is the 
testimony of Moses. The difficulty would seem 
to lie in determining the particular sin here 
adumbrated. But on a closer examination of the 
passage before us, we are struck by a peculiarity 
in the imagery employed, which leads to the con- 
clusion, that, however aggravated the perpetually 
recurring transgressions of the Israelites, the Holy 
Spirit here passes them over in silence, to denounce 
one specific iniquity of which they were guilty 
during their abode in the desert. " The earth," we 
are told, " helped the woman, and the earth opened 
her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the 
dragon cast o.ut of his mouth." The woman being 
still in the wilderness, we therefore continue to 
direct our attention to that portion of sacred history 
which records the sojourn in the wilderness of the 
ancient Church of God; and in that history we are 
met by a passage so precisely similar, that if any 
system of parallels be admitted the coincidence can 
scarcely be regarded as accidental. I allude to 
the narrative of the rebellion of Korah, Dathan, 
and Abiram in the 16th chapter of Numbers, 
where it is said, ver. 32, " The earth opened her 
mouth, and swallowed them up," &c. The same 



344 



THE KEMNANT. 



[part IT. 



expression recurs in Deut. xi. 6 , and also in Ps. cvi., 
where reference is made to this fearful destruction. 
I subjoin the passage from the Revelations in the 
original, and the parallel passages from the Sep- 
tuagint, that their exact agreement may be the 
better appreciated. 

Rev. xii. 16. ''Wvoi^v T) yrj to GTO/ma avrrjg Kal 
KaTtirie t6v woto/uov. 

Numb, xvi. 32. YLvoiyOt] r\ yi) Kai kqt^ttuv avTOVQ. 

Deut. xi. 6. Avoi^aaa t] yt] to GTopa avTiqq Kal 

KaTZTTlZV aVTOVQ. 

Ps. Cvi. 17. HvolyOri fj yrj Kal KaTtTrie AaOav Kal 

£KCt\v\p£V £777 T7]V GWayis)yT)V AfisiOOJV. 

The parallelism is complete ! Can it be doubted 
that the flood from the dragon's mouth, and the 
rebellion of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram are cor- 
relatives ? When it is remembered that the fearful 
punishment inflicted on the latter was not of ordi- 
nary occurrence, but " a new thing" which the Lord 
had made, the point appears hardly to admit of a 
doubt. 

This sudden assault then by the devil and his 
agents upon the woman in the wilderness is de- 
signed probably to indicate some outbreak analogous 
to that of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram against 
Moses. Now this rebellion is remarkable among 
other things on the following account. " Korah," 

6 I observe that Desprez in his " Apocalypse fulfilled in the 
Consummation of the Mosaic Economy," &c. has noticed this 
parallel. 



CH. VI.] 



THE KEMNANT. 



345 



observes Bp. Kidder, " was cousin-german to Moses 
and Aaron, and thought himself fit to be their 
equal." 

Again. Da than and Abiram were grandchildren 
of Reuben, who was the first-born of Israel, but for 
his sin was deprived of his birthright 7 . " At what 
time this rebellion happened," says Stackhouse, 
" the history does not inform us. Probably it was 
soon after the advancement of Aaron and his family 
to the office of High Priest, it being the general 
opinion that that advancement was the cause of 
the mutiny. And so Josephus represents it." To 
which we may add the remark of Dr. Graves : 
" Dathan, Abiram, and On, were chiefs of the tribe 
of Reuben, the first-born of the sons of J acob ; and 
may therefore have conceived themselves better 
entitled than Moses to pre-eminence in temporal 
power." 

Moses being pre-eminently the type of Christ, 
and Israel of old typifying the present Israel of 
God, the rebellion and assumption of authority by 
Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, in the Elder Dispensa- 
tion, would seem to indicate a power which should 
afterwards rise up in the Christian Church, and 
arrogate to itself the prerogatives of Christ. 

This idea of the usurpation of kingly and priestly 
power being suggested, we are naturally led to the 
contemplation of that insatiate ambition long since 



7 See Mailt in loco. 



346 



THE REMNANT. 



[PART II. 



exhibited by the Bishop of Rome, which has even- 
tuated in his insolent assumption of temporal and 
spiritual supremacy over Christendom, an assump- 
tion grounding its pretensions on systematic per- 
version of truth, and self-investiture with the ex- 
clusive privileges of the Son of God. 

The view which I have taken of Rev. xii. 15, 16, 
receives confirmation from chap. xvii. 3. I have 
imagined, that in the former passage is prefigured 
the rise and destruction of the Papacy ; that Korah, 
Dathan, and Abiram represent an usurping regal 
and priestly power, which should arise in the 
Christian Church during the time of her sojourn in 
the wilderness. In chap. xvii. 3, we observe that 
the Apostle was carried into the wilderness to 
behold the overthrow of Babylon. "He carried 
me away in the spirit into the wilderness : and I 
saw a woman sit upon a scarlet-coloured beast, full 
of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten 
horns." In the place of the spouse of Christ, the 
Apostle beholds the harlot of Babylon. She is 
borne, not on eagles' wings, but on "the scarlet- 
coloured beast." " No spiritual Rock follows her : 
no pillar of fire, or of cloud, is there for light or 
shelter. Her carcass shall fall in that wilderness, 
from whence the Lamb's wife shall enter her long- 
promised inheritance on earth, — millennial peace 
and rest, — previous to her eternal rest in heaven 8 ." 

8 Archdeacon Forster, p. 181, and following. See also 
Wordsworth in loco. 



CH. VI.] 



THE REMNANT. 



347 



A further reference to the pages of the Apocalypse 
would seem to confirm the correctness of the inter- 
pretation of this most difficult passage. Two cities 
or polities appear to be spoken of in the Revelation 
as pre-eminently opposed to the heavenly Jerusalem, 
or, if but one city be intended, it is represented 
under two different and consecutive phases. There 
is u that great city Babylon," and "the great city, 
which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where 
also our Lord was crucified 9 ;" both probably 
being designated by the term " the city, that great 
one," (tJ ttoXiq n /i£yaAr/,) because each becomes in 
turn the nucleus of a sinful community. 

That one of these two cities perishes and gives 
place to the other appears evident from the 8th 
verse of the 14th chapter, already referred to, 
where an angel says, " Babylon is fallen, is fallen," 
and is followed by another angel, " saying with a 
loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his 
image," (with which we must suppose from Rev. xi. 
7, 8, the city called Sodom and Egypt to be con- 
nected,) "the same shall drink of the wine of the 
wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture 
into the cup of his indignation." 

On reference to chap. xvi. 19, the like distinc- 
tion seems observable. " The great city " spoken 
of apparently in chap. xi. 8, as " Sodom and Egypt, 
where also our Lord was crucified," (and which, as 



9 See Eev. xiv. 8 ; xvii. 18 ; xviii. 10 ; and xi. 8. 



348 



THE REMNANT. 



[PART II. 



it is there symbolized by a triple figure, so here, it 
is divided into three parts, ) is evidently in existence 
at a time when Babylon lives only in the divine 
remembrance. As Babylon she had received her 
overthrow and "become the habitation of devils, 
and the hold of every foul spirit, and the cage of 
every unclean and hateful bird." The " remem- 
brance" however of her former existence comes up 
before God — the retrospect, suggested as it were by 
the destruction of cities of an analogous character, 
— and God then delivers to her u the cup of the 
wine of the fierceness of his wrath." Now the 
destruction of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram is of a 
twofold character. We have the overthrow of an 
usurping priestly, and that of an usurping kingly 
power; — the one consumed by fire from the Lord, 
the other destroyed by an earthquake. If this 
complex figure answer to the spiritual and temporal 
sway of the Papacy, the one, i. e. the spiritual, is 
presented to us in the Revelations under the form 
of mystic Babylon, the other, i. e. the temporal, in 
the book of Daniel under that of the little horn. 
Of futurity we must speak with caution. Yet 
when we reflect how intimately connected are the 
fortunes of this little horn with those of the Beast, 
of whom Egypt will be shown to be the symbol, 
(so much so that he not only uproots three of the 
ten horns on the head of the Beast, and establishes 
himself in their place, but that because of the great 
words which the little horn speaks, the Beast is 



CH. VI.] 



THE REMNANT. 



349 



"slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the 
burning flame,") when we bear in mind that the 
temporal power of the Pope may still survive, 
although his spiritual existence should have been 
brought to a close, and that the influence which he 
is spoken of as exercising over the closing fortunes 
of the Beast is fatal in the extreme, we may be led 
to conclude that the development of the Papacy has 
hitherto been but partial : — that as the Head of the 
Romish Church has sustained so prominent a cha- 
racter in the reign of superstition, so he may occupy 
an analogous position in the empire of infidelity ; and 
that as heretofore his fortunes have been so closely 
interwoven with those of mystic Babylon, so here- 
after the city called Sodom and Egypt may be 
linked in some inscrutable manner with his future 
career. 

Now let us turn once more to Be v. xii. 15, 16. 
Supposing the allusion which I have suggested to 
be correct, the symbolism results in the following 
unexpected harmony. Whereas it is recorded of 
Korah and his company, i. e. the usurping priestly 
power, that " there came out a fire from the Lord, 
and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that 
offered incense," so it is foretold of Babylon " she 
shall be utterly burned with fire, for strong is the 
Lord God who judge th her." And whereas we 
read of Dathan and Abiram, i. e. the usurping 
kingly power, that " the earth opened her mouth 
and swallowed them up," so it is written of " that 



350 



THE REMNANT. 



[PART II. 



great city which spiritually is called Sodom and 
Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified," that 
" there was a great earthquake, and the tenth part 
of the city fell \" 

We appear now to have reached an advanced 
period in the history of Christianity, and to have 
entered the region of unfulfilled Prophecy. To 

1 On referring to Isaiah, chap. xxv. 2, 3, the supposition that 
two great cities are spoken of in the Revelations, would appear 
to be justified. The Prophet, arguing of the future from the 
past, says, " Thou hast made of a city an heap ; of a defenced 
city a ruin ; a palace of strangers to be no city ; it shall never 
be built. Therefore shall the strong people glorify thee, the 
city of the terrible nations shall fear thee," i. e. because one 
great city bas been destroyed by Thee, therefore another great 
city shall fear Thee. It is singular concerning the first city, 
that while the marginal references point to the destruction of 
Babylon, (see references, Isa. xxi. 9 ; xxiii. 13 ; and the ex- 
pression, " It shall never be built," seems to justify the applica- 
tion, see Rev. xviii. 21,) so with regard to the second, they 
direct our attention to Rev. xi. 13, i. e. the city spiritually 
called Sodom and Egypt. And with this view harmonizes a 
subsequent portion of the prophecy (see chap. xxvi. 20, 21, and 
chap, xxvii. 1. 12, 13) : where, after a manifest allusion to 
that memorable Jewish Passover which preceded the Exodus, 
the Prophet continues, " In that day the Lord with his sore 
and great and strong sword shall punish Leviathan the piercing 
serpent, (' he shall punish the king who is magnified as Pha- 
raoh,' says the Targum, see Gill in loco,) even Leviathan that 
crooked serpent ; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the 
sea." And then proceeding to speak of the restoration of the 
Jews, he concludes the chapter with another reference to the 
land of Egypt. 



CH. VI.] 



THE REMNANT. 



351 



such a conclusion we are led by the peculiarity of 
the expression the remnant, " And the Dragon was 
wroth with the woman, and went to make war 
with the remnant of her seed, which keep the 
commandments of God, and have the testimony of 
Jesus Christ 2 ." It would seem then, that the 
many had already fallen away, or been destroyed ; 
that the water, which " the serpent cast out of his 
mouth," had produced a fatal effect upon a large 
portion of the woman's seed, before "the earth 
opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood." 
Yet the persecuted Church and a remnant still 
survive, to baffle the machinations of the Dragon, 
and arouse him to renewed efforts to sweep her and 
her offspring from the earth. We have been in- 
duced to suppose that this flood was symbolic of the 
devastation wrought in the Church of Christ by the 
errors and persecutions of the Papacy ; and that it 
thus links itself to that portion of the Apocalypse 
which shadows forth to us the history of mystic 
Babylon. The mention of a remnant, in connexion 
with this symbolism, presents at first sight a diffi- 
culty ; not that we meet with no response to it in 
Scripture, but that we find a twofold response, re- 
ferring to two widely different objects. There was 
one remnant left in the land of Israel at the com- 
mencement of the Babylonish captivity : there was 
another remnant which returned thither when that 
2 Eev. xii. 17. 



352 



THE REMNANT. 



[PART II. 



captivity had been brought to a close. At the 
time when the children of Israel were carried away 
into Babylon, " Nebuzaradan the captain of the 
guard left certain of the poor of the people for vine- 
dressers and for husbandmen V These are spoken 
of under the title of a remnant. Terrified at what 
might be the after-policy of their conqueror, and 
feeling that there was no safety for them in Jeru- 
salem or Judea, this remnant determined to quit 
the land of their forefathers, and betake themselves 
for protection to Egypt. They came therefore to 
Jeremiah, beseeching him to inquire of the Lord 
for them, and promising obedience to his will. 
To their supplication the Prophet returned for 
answer, that if they would still abide in the land, 
then God would build them, and not pull them 
down, and plant them, and not pluck them up : for 
that He repented Him of the evil which He had 
done unto them : that with regard to the king of 
Babylon, they should not be afraid of him, for that 
God would be with them to deliver them out of his 
hand. But, in the event of their disobedience the 
Prophet was commissioned to" deliver the following 
•threat : " Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of 
Israel; As mine anger and my fury hath been 
poured forth upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem ; so 
shall my fury be poured forth upon you, when ye 



3 See 2 Kings xxv. 12. Jer. xxxix. 10, and lii. 16. 



CH. VI.] 



THE REMNANT. 



353 



shall enter into Egypt; and ye shall be an execra- 
tion, and an astonishment, and a curse, and a re- 
proach ; and ye shall see this place no more. The 
Lord hath said concerning you, ye remnant of 
Judah ; Go ye not into Egypt ; know certainly 
that I have admonished you this day 4 ." That 
this remnant was disobedient to the word of the 
Lord we learn from the same prophet 5 . They 
went down into Egypt and dwelt there, and con- 
formed to the idolatrous customs of the land. 
In connexion with this fact, I cannot but advert 
to the peculiar title of the monarch to whom 
they fled for safety. It was Pharaoh Hophra, 
i. e. Pharaoh the Solar Serpent, or, as Ezekiel 
terms him, the Dragon in the seas 6 , whose pro- 
tection they sought, in opposition to the ex- 
pressed command, and in contempt of the proffered 
guardianship, of Jehovah. 

But this remnant, although it may possibly be 
referred to by implication as contrasting with that 
of which we have yet to speak, responds not in 
its primary allusion to the words of St. John. 
The Apostle speaks, not of a disobedient, but of 
a faithful remnant — "the remnant of her" (the 
woman's) "seed, which keep the commandments of 
God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ 7 ." 

4 Jer. xlii. 18, 19. See the whole passage. 

5 Ibid. ch. xliii. xliv. 

6 See ch. xxxii. 2, marginal reading. 

1 The expression " have the testimony," kyovruv r\)v naprvpiav, 

A a 



354 



THE REMNANT. 



[PART II. 



On the overthrow of Babylon permission was 
granted to the Israelites to return to Judea. 
The great body of the people, however, instead 
of availing themselves of the decree of Cyrus, 
were content to remain in the country of their cap- 
tivity; and small, in consequence, was the number 
which sought again the land of their fathers. Of 
these Ezra speaks as the remnant which had es- 
caped 8 , and Nehemiah as u the remnant which 
were left of the captivity 9 ." With this remnant, 
emancipated from the thraldom of Babylon and re- 
turning with joy and thanksgiving to the holy hill 
of Sion, the expressions in the Apocalypse seem 
more readily to accord. 

Should the allusion here pointed out be de- 
signed, the passage supplies an obscure link in 
the system of tropes under examination, and bids 
us interweave what has been elsewhere written 
of mystic Babylon and her adjuncts, with the 
symbolism now presented to our view. Under 
this aspect, its office is at once most befitting 
and important; for while the implied reference 
to "the Harlot" assists us most materially in as- 
signing to the type its analogous historic position, 
the account, elsewhere given, of her quaffing to in- 

observes Dr. C. Wordsworth, is a phrase peculiar to the Apoca- 
lypse and St. John, expressing the firm maintenance of the 
truth. Harmony to Apocalypse, p. 23. 

s Ezra ix. 8. 14. See too, ch. iii. 8. 

9 Nehem. i. 3. 



CH. VI.] 



THE REMNANT. 



355 



toxication the blood of saints and of martyrs, 
closely coincides with the prolonged system of per- 
secution implied in the symbolism of the flood from 
the Dragon's mouth, and prepares us for the ex- 
pression which follows, — the Dragon "went to 
make war with the remnant of the woman's seed 
which keep the commandments of God, and have 
the testimony of Jesus Christ." 

And here we must pause to inquire whether 
the 13th chapter of Kevelation, upon which we 
are now entering, be a continuation of chap, xii., 
or, whether it does not rather take a retrograde 
step, previous to entering upon the history of that 
remnant, which yet baffled the endeavours of Satan 
to subvert the religion of the Cross. If the inter- 
pretation of the Beast and his Rider, given in a 
preceding chapter, be correct, it leads to the 
latter conclusion. The vision would here seem to 
revert to an earlier period, in order at once to con- 
nect itself with the revelation of a former Prophet, 
identifying the beast here described with that fourth 
monster, "dreadful and terrible," which appeared 
to Daniel coming up from the depths of the sea, 
and also to trace his rise and progress up to that 
period at which he had been incidentally intro- 
duced in the 7th verse of the 11th chapter. Ac- 
cordingly we find St. John changing the position 
which he had hitherto occupied, and, like Daniel 
" in the vision of his head upon his bed," standing 
upon the sand of the sea. Or, should the third 

a a 2 



356 



THE REMNANT. 



[PART II. 



person singular 1 be the reading preferred, and the 
verb be understood to indicate the position not of 
the Evangelist, but of the great red Dragon, in that 
case it is clear that the sacred seer follows the 
movements of Satan, and beholds his emissary 
ascend from the abyss of those troubled waters. 

It should be observed, moreover, in support of 
this hypothesis, that the beast seen by St. John, 
like that beheld by his predecessor, had not only 
ten horns, but incorporated, as elements of its 
entity, certain characteristics of the other three 
beasts exhibited to Daniel. " The beast which I 
saw," says the Apostle, u was like unto a leopard, 
and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his 
mouth as the mouth of a lion 2 ." 

And the parallelism which we have noticed as 
existing between Rev. xiii. 2, and Dan. vii. 4 — 7, 
will be more apparent, if we observe that St. John, 
in describing the characteristics of the Beast which 
he saw ascending out of the sea, not only speaks 
of those elements pertaining to the three beasts 
beheld by Daniel, but mentions them also in the 
exact order in which those beasts succeeded each 
other in the vision of the earlier Prophet. 

The ten-horned beast of St. John would then 
appear to be identical with the fourth beast of 
Daniel, which devoured the whole earth, and trod 

1 taTr]atv, he (the Dragon) stood, is thought to be the correct 
reading. See Dr. C. Wordsworth. 
- Compare Dan. vii. 4 — 7. 



CH. VI.] 



THE REMNANT. 



357 



it down and brake it in pieces 3 ; — the last mighty 
empire raised up and sustained by Satan in oppo- 
sition to the kingdom of Heaven, before " the king- 
doms of this world shall become the kingdoms of 
our Lord, and of his Christ." 

It would seem, moreover, as though the history 
of the faithful remnant were delineated at verse 7, 
chap, xiii., answering to verse 7 of chap, xi., 
where the Beast, freed from his Eider, recovers 
his former power, and exercises it in an extermi- 
nating war against the residue of men, who, at this 
advanced period in the annals of the Church, yet 
hold fast to the religion of their crucified Lord. 

The Apocalypse makes frequent mention of mar- 
tyrs, — which term is generally understood to re- 
present those who, faithful unto death, have sealed 
their testimony with their blood. 

Our blessed Lord, as having " before Pontius 
Pilate witnessed a good confession," places Himself 
at the head of the glorious company, speaking of 
Himself by the Spirit, as "the faithful witness 
(juapTvg), and the first-begotten of the dead 4 ," and 
again, as " the Amen, the faithful and true witness 
(^uaprue), the beginning of the creation of God 5 ." 

St. John also, in the opening chapter of his 
prophetic book, enrols himself in this noble army, 
as having borne record (t/uapTvpYios) of the word of 



3 Dan. vii. 7. 19. 23. 

5 lb. iii. 14. 



* Bev. i. 5. 



358 



THE KEMNANT. 



[part II. 



God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ (r?}i> 

jiiapTvplav 'Iyigov XjOiarou 6 ). 

Of a portion of this sacred band the Apostle 
makes mention in chap. vi. 9, as having finished 
their earthly struggle, and awaiting with anxiety the 
close of that prolonged contest in which they had 
been engaged. "And when he (the Lamb) had 
opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the 
souls of them that were slain for the word of God, 
and for the testimony which they held (r?jv paprv- 
plav rjv sl^op) : and they cried with a loud voice, 
saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou 
not judge and avenge our blood on them which 
dwell on the earth ? " 

We then read of an accession yet to be made 
to this noble army, ere its sacred number could be 
completed. " And white robes were given to every 
one of them; and it was said unto them, that they 
should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow- 
servants also and their brethren, that should be 
killed as they were, should be fulfilled." 

Here probably is the first mention of that 

6 " As there are three kinds of martyrdom, the first both in 
will and deed, which is the highest, the second in will but not 
in deed, the third in deed but not in will, so the Church com- 
memorates these martyrs in the same order : St. Stephen first, 
who suffered death both in will and deed ; St. John the Evan- 
gelist next, who suffered martyrdom in will but not in deed ; the 
Holy Innocents last, who suffered in deed but not in will." 
"Wheatley on the Common Prayer, c. 5. § 4. 2. 



CH. VI.] 



THE REMNANT. 



359 



remnant of the woman's seed who " keep the com- 
mandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus 

Christ" {rr\v [xaprvpiav tov 'Iy}<jov Xpiorou). 

Of their patience St. John speaks in another 
portion of the Apocalypse, so often referred to in 
the present volume : " There followed another angel, 
saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen .... and the 
third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, 
If any man worship the beast and his image, and 
receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, 
the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of 
God . . . and shall be tormented with fire and 
brimstone . . . and the smoke of their torment 
ascendeth up for ever and ever : and they have no 
rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his 
image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his 
name. Here is the patience of the saints; here 
are they that keep the commandments of God, and 
the faith of Jesus " (^TYipovvreg Tag evToXag tov Geou 
/cat ttjv tt'kttiv 'Ljcrou 7 ). 

Of the close of the testimony of the two faithful 
witnesses we read, "And when they shall have 
finished their testimony (ri?v naprvp'iav awrwv), the 
beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit 
shall make war against them, and shall over- 
come them, and kill them. And their dead bodies 
shall lie in the street of the great city, which 
spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also 
our Lord was crucified. And they of the people 
7 Eev. xiv. 8—12. 



360 



THE REMNANT. 



[PART II. 



and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see 
their dead bodies three days and a half, and shall 
not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves. 
And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice 
over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts 
one to another ; because these two prophets tor- 
mented them that dwelt on the earth 8 ." 

Then follows the account of their resurrection : 
" And after three days and a half the Spirit of life 
from God entered into them, and they stood upon 
their feet ; and great fear fell upon them that saw 
them. And they heard a great voice from heaven, 
saying unto them, Come up hither. And they as- 
cended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies 
beheld them 9 ." 

The sublime imagery closes not without as- 
signing to the sacred remnant their peculiar and 
" exceeding great reward." "And I saw thrones, 
and they sat upon them, and judgment was given 
unto them : and I saw the souls of them that were 
beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the 
word of God, and which had not worshipped 
the beast, neither his image, neither had received 
his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands ; 
and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand 
years. But the rest of the dead lived not again 
until the thousand years were finished. This 
is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he 
that hath part in the first resurrection : on such 
8 Eev. xi. 7—10. 9 lb. 11, 12. 



CH. VI.] 



THE REMNANT. 



361 



the second death hath no power, but they shall be 
priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with 
him a thousand years V 

From these passages it will be observed, that the 
conflict of this sacred remnant is not with Babylon, 
for she is fallen, but with the Beast and his image. 
" The Beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless 
pit makes war with them, and overcomes them, and 
kills them. 11 And this result exactly harmonizes 
with the conclusion at which we have already 
arrived. The fearful struggle of this remnant, 
then, is not with Papal Rome, but with Antichrist : 
— not between faith and superstition, but between 
faith and infidelity : — not with the scarlet Woman 
who had controlled the actions of the Beast, but 
with the Beast himself after he had shaken off her 
drunken sway. The symbolism points to the final 
and most deadly conflict yet to be evolved in the 
history of the Church's earthly pilgrimage, ere 
" the seventh angel " sound, and " great voices in 
heaven" proclaim, "The kingdoms of this world 
are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his 
Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever." 

One question respecting the Beast with whom 
this final struggle is to be maintained, yet re- 
mains for discussion, ere we proceed to the con- 
sideration of his Mystic Number. 

Bearing in mind that the chief aim of the pre- 

1 Rev. xx. 4, 5. 



362 



THE REMNANT. 



[PART II. 



sent volume is less to develop the history sha- 
dowed forth in Rev. xiii., than to inquire how far 
its typical character may be elucidated by reference 
to the history and mythology of Ancient Egypt, 
the question which presents itself is this : — Whether 
the seven heads and ten crowned horns of the 
beast, beheld by St. John, are capable of receiving 
illustration from any known peculiar characteristics 
of that remarkable kingdom. On this difficult 
subject I would venture the following observa- 
tions. It is a well-known fact that Egyptian chro- 
nologers are divided on the question of the con- 
temporaneousness of the first seventeen Dynasties. 
Mr. Gliddon imagines that he can set forth an 
"exposition of facts, whereby the hypothesis of 
dynastic contemporaneousness during the Old Em- 
pire can be destroyed V Mr. R. S. Poole, however, 
in his " Horse iEgyptiacse," written subsequently to 
the " Otia iEgyptiaca" of Mr. Gliddon, makes the 
following remarks : — 

" Before entering upon this portion of Egyptian 
" histoiy, (the First Nineteen Dynasties,) I must 
" consider the order of these Dynasties, a subject 
" respecting which the learned of modern times 
" have widely differed. 

" Every one allows that the nineteenth Dynasty 
" succeeded the eighteenth, and that neither of 
" these Dynasties was contemporary with any other : 



2 Otia JSgyptiaca, p. 35. 



CH. VI.] 



THE REMNANT. 



363 



it is the order of the first seventeen Dynasties of 
Manetho's list that has been the cause of so many 
disputes, and it is this that I have to consider. 

" Manetho speaks of the rising of the Kings of 
the Thebaid and of the other parts of Egypt 
against the Shepherds, themselves a Dynasty, or 
Dynasties of Kings ; and thus he plainly indicates 
his belief that there were at that time at least 
three contemporary Dynasties. 

" Other writers of ancient and modern times 
have affirmed some of the facts which I am about 
to prove, and have adduced arguments in favour 
of their assertions ; but the proof from the monu- 
ments has hitherto been wanting. This proof I 
am now to give ; and I beg that the reader will 
pay especial attention to it. I shall prove that 
the monuments establish the contemporaneous- 
ness of certain of the first seventeen Dynasties 
with others of the same portion of Manetho's 
list, by several records which have not hitherto 
been adduced as proofs of this important fact, 
and which develop the general scheme of the ar- 
rangement of these Dynasties in a most striking 
manner. 

" It may be well here to remove a prejudice 
which some have thought to rest upon a founda- 
tion not easily shaken. It has been supposed 
that those Pharaohs who are styled in inscriptions 
of their own times Kings of all Egypt, or, more 
particularly, Kings of Upper and Lower Egypt, 



364 



THE REMNANT. 



[part II. 



" titles not uncommonly used, were sole Kings; 
" and, consequently, that some of the first seventeen 
" Dynasties ruled alone over all Egypt, without 
44 contemporaries. That this is an erroneous con- 
" elusion will he most satisfactorily proved by in- 
" scrip tions which I shall have to cite, in which two 
" contemporary Kings are mentioned, and one of 
" them receives these titles. Even if we had not 
" these proofs, it seems to me that this objection 
" would not carry any weight, when we remember 
" the parallel instances in the history of other 
" nations, such as the title of King of Great Britain, 
44 France, and Ireland; and others too numerous to 
44 mention. Several Oriental sovereigns of the 
" present day arrogate to themselves titles far more 
w extravagant, with respect to the extent of their 
" rule, than those which certain of the Pharaohs 
u assumed in calling themselves Kings of all 
" Egypt. 

" The following Table of the order of the first 
" seventeen Dynasties was constructed by my uncle, 
44 Mr. E. W. Lane, in the year 1830. He founded 
" it upon the evidence given by Manetho and 
" others, that some of the early Dynasties were 
" contemporary, and upon consideration of the 
44 ordinal and other appellations (or numbers and 
" names) by which those Dynasties are distin- 
" guished; for the interpretation of hieroglyphics 
" was not then certain enough for him to obtain 
44 clear monumental evidence. When I commenced 



CH. VI.] 



THE REMNANT. 



365 



" the study of hieroglyphics, he showed me this 
" Table; and, although he had discontinued that 
" study for some years, he expressed his belief 
" that his arrangement would be confirmed by the 
" discoveries of others. After perusing some of the 
" works of later authors, I became persuaded that 
" his system was untenable ; and that, if any of the 
" Dynasties were contemporary, they were not con- 
u temporary in that order. Thus I relinquished 
" it, and sought in the works of others a true 
" scheme of Egyptian chronology; but sought in 
" vain : I could find no system that would bear 
" the test of comparison with the monuments. 
" At last, after lamenting the time that had been 
" lost in this fruitless search, I determined to study 
" the monuments only, and to judge for myself; and, 
" to my astonishment, I found every thing confirm 
" my uncle's theory, until, by degrees, proving point 
" after point, I at last became convinced that the 
" system was altogether correct. Thus I came to 
" the conclusions which I have adopted after having 
" long entertained the strongest prejudices against 
" them. I now subjoin the Table V 

3 Horse iEgyptiacaa, p. 79, &c. 



366 THE REMNANT. [PART II. 



herds. 


Yrs. 








rH 

rH 
VO 




rH 
rH 

VO 


Shep] 


d 

Q 






15th j 


16th 


■+3 

rH 






03 

eg 








HP 
00 
CM 




HH 
00 
<M 












U 

o 


• 


Fi 
O 


Xoites 


d* 
P 








HP 

00 
rH 

rd 

-+3 

HP 
rH 


• 


H=l 
00 
rH 


£ 






CO 
VO 


o 

CO 
rH 


HP 
00 
rH 


rH 

vo 

rH 


HP 
VO 
VO 


spoli 


















d 

>i 
P 




£ 

rH 
rH 


12th 


13th 


4-3 

rH 




)lites. 


03 

S-i 




CI 
O 


VO 
00 
rH 




• 


HP 
CO 

VO 


Oh 

O 

<D 
















Hera( 


d 
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P 




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CO 


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rH 




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inites. 


CO 




00 

HP 

CM 








00 
HP 
CM 


Elephanl 


a 
p 




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VO 






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CO 
>> 
1— 1 








o 
j> 




O 


Memphites 


2 


HP 
rH 
<M 


HP 
00 
<M 


CO 

o 




CO 

HP 
rH 


*> 
HH 

00 




d 
P 


T3 
CO 


rd 

HP 


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CO 


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rg 

00 




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2 


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vo 


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o 

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vo 

VO 

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d 
P 


rH 


2nd 











OH. VI.] 



THE REMNANT. 



367 



It will be seen then, that in the first seventeen 
Dynasties there were seven sources of power, the 
Thinite, the Memphite, the Elephantinite, the He- 
racleopolite, the Diospolite, the Xoite, the Shepherd. 
At the conclusion of the seventeenth Dynasty, 
these seven were all merged in the eighteenth. 
The seven heads centered in one beast, that mon- 
ster power, during the existence of which the Eisode 
and the Exode of the chosen people of God were ac- 
complished. Now if we set aside the Shepherd 
Dynasty as one of foreign invaders, six native 
Dynasties remain; to these let us add the Theban, 
that of the eighteenth Dynasty. We have then, 
A beast with seven heads, each head being that of 
a native royal Egyptian Family. But if the view 
which I have taken of Egyptian history be correct, 
then the seventh or Theban head of the beast re- 
ceived a deadly wound; for we have presumed that 
under the influence of Joseph that idolatrous and 
haughty power became converted, embracing the 
worship of the God of Israel. Unhappily, this 
state of things was not permanent, the family of 
Harnesses abjuring the religion of Joseph, and 
falling back upon the worship of the Solar Serpent. 
Thus the Theban head which had been wounded 
to death was healed. 

But the Beast which St. John saw, had not only 
seven heads, but ten horns, and upon his horns ten 
crowns. Perhaps even this feature is not incapable 
of elucidation from a peculiar passage in the in- 



368 



THE REMNANT. 



[PART II. 



scription on " The Rosetta Stone." From that 
singular monument of antiquity I extract the fol- 
lowing : — 

" It has pleased the priests of all the temples of 
" the land to decree, that all the honours belong- 
" ing to the King Ptolemy, ever living, the well- 
u beloved of Pthah, god Epiphanes, most gracious, 
" as well as those which are due to his father and 
" mother, the gods philopatores ; and those which 
" are due to his ancestors, should be considerably 
" augmented; that the statue of King Ptolemy, 
" ever living, be erected in each temple, and placed 
" in the most conspicuous spot, which shall be 
" called the Statue of Ptolemy the avenger of Egypt; 
" near this statue shall be placed the principal god 
" of the temple, who will present him with the arms 
" of victory; and every thing shall be disposed in 
" the manner most appropriate. That the priests 
" shall perform, three times a day, a religious 
" service to these statues ; that they shall adorn 
" them with sacred ornaments ; and that they shall 
" have care to render them, in the great solemnities, 
" all the honours which, according to usage, ought 
"to be paid to the other deities; that there be 
" consecrated to King Ptolemy a statue, and a 
" chapel, gilded, in the most holy of the temples; 
" that this chapel be placed in the sanctuary, with 
" all the others ; and that, in the great solemnities, 
" wherein it is customary to bring out the chapels 

from the sanctuaries, there shall be brought out 



CH. VI.] 



THE REMNANT. 



369 



u that of the god Epiphanes, most gracious ; and 
" that this chapel may be better distinguished from 
" the others, now and in the lapse of time here- 
" after, there shall be placed above it the ten golden 
" crowns of the king, which shall bear on their 
" anterior part, an asp, in imitation of those crowns 
" of aspic form, which are in the other chapels ; 
" and in the middle of these crowns, shall be 
" placed the royal ornament termed Pshent, that 
" one which the king wore when he entered the 
" Memphis, in the temple, in order to observe the 
" legal ceremonies prescribed for the coronation ; 
" that there be attached to the tetragon (the 
" cornice f or perhaps cover ?) encircling the ten 
" crowns affixed to the chapel above named phy- 
" lacteres of gold (similar to the Hebrew c taphi- 
"lim' — amulets) with this inscription: — 'This is 
u the chapel of the King; of that king who has 
" rendered illustrious the upper and the lower 
" region,' " &c. &c. 4 

It is clear, that the custom of assigning the ten 
crowns to deified kings did not originate with this 
decree, but, on the contrary, that the grant was 
made to Ptolemy Epiphanes in compliance with 
a custom which had previously obtained in the 
country. Whether this custom was in existence as 
early as the eighteenth Dynasty is a point on which 
I can gain no information. In the absence of proof 

4 From Grliddon's Ancient Egypt, pp. 4, 5. 

B b 



370 



THE REMNANT. 



[PART II. 



to the contrary, may not this curious inscription 
be regarded as elucidating that remarkable typical 
characteristic in the portraiture of the beast, — his 
ten crowned horns ? It may indeed be objected, 
that no horns are mentioned in conjunction with 
the ten crowns on the shrine of Ptolemy. But in 
the presence of the crowns is implied the idea 
symbolized by the horns. For the horn is but the 
generic symbol of power, whereas the crown is a 
specific, involving the generic. Power is supposed 
where the crown appears ; the one simple emblem 
is at once suggestive of power, and shows that 
power to be regal. If then the ten crowns, as- 
signed as a mark of honour to Ptolemy Epiphanes, 
are traceable to the earlier periods of the empire, 
and formed a part of the insignia of the monarchs 
of the eighteenth Dynasty, I cannot but think that 
even on this obscure point, an Echo from Egypt is 
not without its value, in an attempt to unveil the 
sublime imagery of the Apocalypse. 



CH. VII.] THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



371 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 

We will now, in reliance upon the Divine blessing, 
endeavour to unfold the typical signification of 
those deep words which contain the mystic name 
of the Beast, that " great prophecy," as it has been 
called, of the Book of Revelation, "to which all 
the preceding events predicted in it converge, and 
from which all the subsequent diverge 1 ." "Here 
is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count 
the number of the Beast : for it is the number of a 
man; and his number is Six hundred threescore 
and six." 

I would observe in the first place, that this mode 
of counting names, and indeed sentences, if not 
Egyptian in origin, (for this point does not seem to 
be clearly ascertained,) was notoriously Egyptian in 
practice. Thus much may be gathered from the 
notes on this passage by John Edward Clarke, 
quoted in Dr. Adam Clarke's Commentary. The 
object of a portion of those notes is to show, that 
1 Burgh on the Book of Revelation, p. 266. 
B b 2 



372 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



[PART Hi 



the method alluded to was common at the period 
when the Apocalypse is supposed to have been 
written; but the facts there adduced to establish 
this position, also prove to demonstration that the 
custom was one to which the Egyptians were pecu- 
liarly addicted. It was studied as an element of 
elegance in their literature, forming a peculiar 
feature in the construction of their poetry. 

From the notes to which I have referred I ex- 
tract the following observations : — 

"In this verse (Rev. xiii. 18) we have the very 
" name of the Beast given under the symbol 666. 
" Before the invention of figures by the Arabs, in 
" the tenth century, letters of the alphabet were 
" used for numbers. The Greeks, in the time of 
" Homer, or soon after, are thought by some to have 
" assigned to their letters a numerical value corre- 
" sponding to their order in the alphabet: thus, 
"was '1/ because the first letter; and '24,' 
" being the last. It is in this manner that the 
" books of the Iliad and Odyssey are numbered, 
" which have been thus marked by Homer himself, 
" or by some person who lived near his time 2 . A 
" system of representing numbers of great antiquity 

2 Homer, or the earliest transcribers of his poems, used only- 
twenty letters ; and it is evidently a thought of his critics, and 
not his own, that his poem is divided into twenty-four books, to 
celebrate the twenty-four letters of the new Greek alphabet, 
since he knew only twenty. See " The Origin and Progress of 
the Art of Writing," by Henry Noel Humphreys, page 85. 



CH. VII.] THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



373 



" was used by the Greeks, very much resembling 
" that afterwards adopted by the Romans. This 
" consisted in assigning to the initial letter of the 
46 number of the name a value equal to the number. 
44 Thus X, the initial of x^ l °? stood for a thousand; 
44 A, the initial of Se/ca, for ten; U 9 the initial of 
" 7T6vrf, for five, &c. Herodotus, the grammarian, 
44 is the only writer of antiquity who has noticed 
44 this system, and the chronological table of re- 
" markable events on the Arundelian marbles the 
" only work extant in which this method of repre- 
44 senting numbers is exhibited. The system now 
44 in use cannot be traced to any very ancient source : 
" what can be proved is, that it was in use before 
" the commencement of the Christian sera. Nume- 
" rical letters, denoting the year of the Roman 
" emperor's reign, exist on great numbers of the 
44 Egyptian coins, from the time of Augustus Caesar 
44 through the succeeding reigns. See JVumi 
44 JEgyptii Imperatorii, a Geo. Zoega, Edit. Rom. 
44 1787. There are coins extant marked of the 
44 2nd, 3rd, 14th, 30th, 35th, 38th, 39th, 40th, 
44 41st, and 42nd years of Augustus Caesar, with the 
44 numerical letters preceded by L or A, for XvKafiag, 
"year, thus: LB, Lr, LIA, LA, LAE, LAH, LAO, 
44 LM, LMA, and LMB V 

44 The Greeks express their numbers either by 
small letters with a dash over them, thus, a, or by 
their capitals. To express numbers by their small 
3 Dr. Adam Clarke's Commentary. 



074 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



[PART II. 



letters they divide their alphabet, which, with the 
addition of the three 'ETn^^a, j3au, ^ or ^ /coV™, 
and 3> aav-m, consists of twenty-seven letters, into 
three classes : the letters of the first class, from a to 
denote Units; of the second, from i to h or <r, 
Tens; of the third, from p to % Hundreds. Thou- 
sands are expressed in the same order by adding a 
dot under the letters; thus, a is 1000. 



Units. Tens. Hundi-eds. Thousands. 



a' . . 


. . 1 


i . 


. 10 


9 • 


. 100 


a 


. . 1000 


/3'. . 


. . 2 


K . 


. 20 


a 


. 200 


/3 


. . 2000 


7 • • 


. . 3 


\' . . 


. 30 


T 


. 300 


7 


. . 3000 


V . . 


. . 4 


fX . . 


. 40 


V 


. 400 


i 


. . 4000 


e . 


. . 5 


/ 

V . 


. 50 


4 • 


. 500 


e 


. . 5000 


«? . 


. . 6 




. 60 


X • 


. 600 


i 


. 10,000 


K • • 


. . 7 


o 


. 70 


f • 


. 700 


K 


. 20,000 




. . 8 


it' . 


. 80 


w 


. 800 


P 


. 100,000 


£' . . 


. . 9 


^ or «? . 


. 90 


2), TVl 


. 900 


(7 


4 200,000' 



" The method just described of representing 
" numbers by the letters of the alphabet, gave rise 
" to a practice among the ancients of representing 
" names also by numbers. Examples of this kind 
" abound in the writings of Heathens, Jews, and 
" Christians. 

" When the practice of counting the number in 
" names and phrases began first to be used, cannot 
" be ascertained; it is sufficient for the illustration 
" of the passage under consideration, if it can be 

4 From Hugh James Rose's Greek Grammar, introductory to 
his edition of Parkhurst's Greek Lexicon. 



CH. VII.] THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



375 



" shown to have heen in existence in the Apostolic 
" age. Seneca, who was contemporary with St. 
" Paul, informs us, in his eighty-eighth epistle, that 
" Apion the grammarian 5 maintained Homer to have 
" been the author of the division of his poems of 
" the Iliad and Odyssey into forty-eight hooks ; for 
" a proof of which Apion produces the following 
" argument: that the poet commenced his Iliad 
" with the word ju»ivn>, that the two first letters, 
" whose sum is forty-eight, might indicate such 
" division. Leonidas of Alexandria, who flourished 
" in the reigns of Nero, Vespasian, &c, carried the 
" practice of computing the number in words, so far 
u as to construct equinumeral distichs; that is, 
u epigrams of four lines, whose first hexameter and 
" pentameter contain the same number with the 
" other two. We will only notice two examples : 
" the first is addressed to one of the emperors, the 
u other to Poppsea, the wife of Nero. 

Qvei (rot ro§£ ypafjifAa ytvzQXiaKaiaiv ev wpaig, 
Kaiaap, NaAairj Moutra Aewvidsd)' 

5 Of this grammarian we read as follows. Apion " was a 
native of Oasis, but used to say that he was born at Alexandria, 
where he studied under Apollonius. He used to say that 
Alexandria ought to be proud of having a man like him among 
its citizens. Among his writings was a work on Egypt 
(Egyptiaea), consisting of five books, which was highly valued 
in antiquity, for it contained descriptions of nearly all the 
remarkable objects of Egypt." Smith's Diet, of Grecian and 
Roman Biography, 



376 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER. [PART II. 



KaWiowriQ yap aKwjrvov aui Ouoq' etc Se ytwra, 
Hv sOeXyg, Ovazi roucte TrepiGGOTtpa. 

" 1 The Muse of Leonidas of the Nile offers up to 
" thee, Csesar, this writing, at the time of thy 
" nativity ; for the sacrifice of Calliope is always 
" without smoke; but in the ensuing year he will 
" offer up, if thou wilt, better things than this.' 

Qvpaviov fiufjir)fxa ytvzdXiaKaiaiv ev wpaig 
Tovt airo NziXoyzvovg £t$o Atom^ZM^ 
rio7r7rata, Atoc tvvi^ StjSaaratc* EimSc yap aoi 
Atopa, ra Kai Aektowv a£ta Kai <ro(j)iag. 

u 'O Poppsea, wife of Jupiter (Nero) Augusta, 
" receive from Leonidas of the Nile a celestial globe 
" on the day of thy nativity : for gifts please thee 
" which are suited to thy imperial dignity and 
" wisdom.' 

" This poet did not restrict himself to the con- 
" struction of equinumeral distich s. The following 
" is one of his distichs in which the hexameter line 
" is made equal in number to its corresponding 
" pentameter : 

Eig irpoq sva \pr)<poiGiv laatsTai, ov $vo Cvoig 1 
Ov yap Eri GTtpyio rr]V SoXiyoypatyirjv . 

" c One line is made equal in number to one, not 
" two to two ; for I no longer approve of long 
" epigrams/ 

" Having thus shown that it was a practice in 



CH. VII.] 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



377 



" the Apostolic age to count the number in words 
" and phrases, and even in whole verses, it will be 
" evident that what is intended by 666 is, that the 
" Greek name of the Beast (for it was in the Greek 
" language that Jesus Christ communicated his 
" Eevelation to St. John) contains this number." 
&c. 6 

The above extracts abundantly prove that this 
method of computing the letters of a name or sen- 
tence was, to say the least, generally adopted in 
Egypt. To this fact Egyptian coins, a grammarian 
of Alexandria, and a poet of the Mle, bear ample 
testimony ; and of this custom, prevalent in his day, 
St. John, or rather the Holy Spirit speaking by 
the mouth of that Evangelist, was pleased to make 
use in order to set forth the mystic name of the 
Beast. 

But this method of computation was not only 
prevalent in Egypt, if not Egyptian in origin, but 
it was also enlisted as an auxiliary in the service of 
Heathen Mythology, to which that country appears 
to have been so peculiarly devoted. It figured 
conspicuously in the mysteries of the worship of 
the sun, MuQpaq (Meithras), one name by which 
that great luminary was distinguished, resolving 
itself into numbers equivalent in the aggregate to 
the days of the year. Thus, p (m) = 40, e (e) = 5, 
i (i) = 10, 6 (th) = 9, P (r) = 100, a (a) = 1, G (s) = 

6 John Edward Clarke, quoted in Dr. Adam Clarke's Com- 
mentary. 



378 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



[PART II. 



200. Total, 365. Hercules is also supposed to 
have been a name given to the solar divinity, and 
his twelve labours to have been an allegorical re - 
presentation of the course of the sun through the 
twelve signs of the Zodiac 1 . Eesolving the word 
EpKtXtQ or Ep£/cAec into its numerical powers we 
obtain 365. 

NaXoc (ISTeilos), the Nile, also worshipped by 
the Egyptians as a tutelar divinity, gives the same 
number 365. 

Again, the far-famed word, AflpaZaq (Abraxas), 
so frequently met with in the mysteries of magical 
science, and which during so many ages defied the 
investigations of the learned, is now found to return 
a like numerical response: — a (a) = 1, (5 (b) = 2, 
P (r) = 100, a (a) = l, £ (x) = 60, a (a) = l, c (s) 
= 200. Total 365. 

But we shall find that this mode of designating 
numbers through the medium of names, or conversely, 
names through the medium of numbers, connects 
itself with Egypt in a far more remarkable manner. 
We have been led to conclude that the children of 
Israel both entered into, and departed from Egypt 
during the sway of the eighteenth Dynasty. Of 
the religious system of that period, so pre-eminent 
in the annals of Egyptian history, little at present 
seems to be known. It is, however, generally ad- 
mitted that idolatry had at this time attained its 

7 See Christmas, Univ. Myth. p. 461. 



CH. VII.] 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER, 



379 



full development 8 . I have conjectured that at 
this momentous period the worship of the Sun 
Serpent formed the substratum, on which so mag- 
nificent an idolatrous superstructure had been 
reared ; and I have adduced, as an element of 
proof in the correctness of such a supposition, the 
large proportion of monarchs of the newly con- 
solidated empire who assumed the title of Amenoph, 
— a name indicative at once of their great ancestor 
Ham, and of the peculiar worship in question. I 
have supposed, moreover, that this fearful phase 
of idolatry, of which the unveiled features were 
the elevation of the Arch-enemy of man to the 
throne of the Omnipotent, succumbed to the teach- 
ing of Joseph, whose influence appears to have in- 
troduced the worship of the God of his fathers into 
the land of the Pharaohs. These glimmerings, 
however, of a purer faith passed away, and the 
Solar Serpent reassumed its dominant position on 
the banks of the Mle. Once more the Serpent 
stood erect ; and a mighty monarch who claimed to 
be the Amenoph, the incarnation of Ham, the Sun 
Serpent, swayed the Egyptian sceptre. 

Now let us take the numerical value of this 
blasphemous title Amenoph — Ham, the Sun Ser- 
pent, a = l, p. = 40, e = 5, f=50, o = 70, = 500. 
1+40 + 5 + 50 + 70 + 500 = 666 9 . 

8 See Birch's letter to Grliddon in " Otia iEgyptiaca," p. 84. 

9 If, as I imagine, Israel came into Egypt in the reign of 
Amenophis Memnon, then the history of the sojourn in the 



380 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



[PART II. 



Before proceeding to comment on this singular 
fact, and to adduce several extraordinary coin- 
cidences attesting the correctness of an interpreta- 
tion by which such wonderful light is thrown upon 
the mysterious pages of prophecy, I would an- 
ticipate two objections to which the present com- 
putation may seem, on a prima facie view, to be 
exposed. The Greeks wrote the word Aiusvw^te, 
by which mode of spelling, its numerical value is 
affected in a twofold manner. With regard to the 
final syllable tc, it need only be observed that it is 
merely a Greek termination to the original word ; — 
a point so obvious, that it is unnecessary to insist 
upon it. The presence of the w, however, requires 
a more extended consideration ; and to that ques- 
tion, albeit unable to handle it with a scholar's 
grasp, I must now address myself. "It has been 
universally admitted," observes Kenrick, "since 
the researches of M. Quatremere de Quincey, that 
the Coptic, the language of the native Christian 
population of Egypt is, in the main, the same as 
the old Egyptian spoken under the Eomans, the 
Ptolemies, the Persians, and the Pharaohs." He 
observes also " that the Greek rendering of Egyp- 
tian names has a general conformity with the 
Coptic language, though it is often impossible to 
trace it through the corruption they have suffered 

land of Ham is hedged in on either side by this Mystic 
Number; the 12th chapter of Eevelation commencing, and 
the 13th closing, with a latent allusion to it. 



CH. VII.] 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



381 



in translation. " Bryant enlarges on the same evil, 
and Lepsius in his letters has more than one remark 
on the subject; Gliddon deplores the utter igno- 
rance and mendacity of the Greeks concerning 
manners and language, and Godfrey Higgins 
passes on them a similar objurgation. These re- 
marks alone suffice to justify us in raising a ques- 
tion as to the correct spelling of the word Ame- 
noph. But we may proceed further than this. 

On turning to " The Origin and Progress of the 
Art of Writing," by Henry Noel Humphreys, we 
read, " The alphabetic characters of the Greeks 
were, as we have every reason to believe, modifica- 
tions of those of the Phoenicians, and were at first, 
only sixteen in number. Herodotus, the earliest of 
the Greek historians, clearly alludes to the Phoeni- 
cian origin of the Greek characters in the folio wing- 
passage, in which, speaking of that people, he says, 
4 they brought fresh knowledge into Greece ; and, 
among other things, letters, which were not in use 
before.' " 

" Pliny also mentions the tradition, that Cadmus 
brought letters from Phoenicia to Greece, and that 
they were originally sixteen in number ,0 ." " It is 
possible, and probable, that the Phoenicians formed 
a system of writing based upon that of Egypt, at 
the time the Phoenician shepherds ruled in the 
land of the Pharaohs, and even at that early period 
perfected an alphabetic system of writing." 

10 P. 84. 



382 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



[PART II. 



" Tacitus, for instance, tells us that the Phoeni- 
cians learned the art of writing from the Egyptians, 
and carried it to all other nations ; and the opinion 
of such a man as Tacitus, so cautious in all he 
advances, and so accurate in the manner in which 
he expresses all that he states, is worthy of the 
highest respect V 

Of the sixteen letters brought by Cadmus into 
Greece, the Omega, it is well known, does not form 
one ; nor is it to be found among the four introduced 
by Palamedes, about 1150 years before the Chris- 
tian sera. It constituted one of the last four, added 
by Simonides, who flourished 533 B.C. Indeed it 
was, if I may so express myself, the last- born of 
the Greek alphabet, and is thought by some not to 
have come into general use until after the days of 
Thucydides. Before its introduction two omicrons 
(oo) were used instead of the Q 2 . 

1 P. 69. 

2 Astle, speaking of these four last letters, observes that 
some of them "were used before the days of Palamedes and 
Simonides, for we find the letters H, 0, 3>, in that most ancient 
inscription, found at Amaclea, in Laconia, which is supposed to 
have been written about one hundred and sixty years before 
the siege of Troy, and one thousand three hundred and forty- 
four before Christ. It is now preserved in the French king's 
collection at Paris, with some other inscriptions, discovered in 

the same city by the Abbe Fourmont There is no £2 in 

this inscription, there are two Omicrons to distinguish between 
the long and the short O ; though another inscription about 
eight hundred years before Christ hath the £2." The Origin 
and Progress of "Writing, by Thomas Astle, Esq. 



CH. VII.] 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



383 



Humphreys observes in another part of his work, 
" that the early alphabet of the Phoenicians appears 
to consist of a greater number of letters than was 
first adopted from it by the Greeks, twenty-two 
characters having been with tolerable certainty 
verified 3 ." Among these, however, the Omega is 
not to be found. 

We may, therefore, conclude that this letter 
formed no portion of the original Coptic alphabet, 
at the time when the Phoenicians are supposed to 
have borrowed theirs from Egyptian sources. Nor 
can we imagine that the Omega was invented by 
the Egyptians at a subsequent yet comparatively 
early period, and remained hidden among the ar- 
cana of that learned people, centuries before its 
general appearance in ancient literature. Hence 
it follows, that the title "Amenoph" must have 
been written in early ages with one or with two 
omicrons. 

Should the derivation we have adopted of this 
name be correct, it is clear that the proper mode 
of spelling it is with one omicron, for thus the 
Greeks themselves spelt 0§iq (Ophis), which is 
the old Egyptian word with a Greek termination, 

Humphreys also remarks " that the Omega (12) was used at 
a much earlier period than the one generally stated, as proved 
by the inscription of the curious coin of Getas, king of the 
Edoneans, in the British Museum." P. 86. These, however, 
are but exceptions to the general rule. 

3 P. 74. 



«S84r THE MYSTIC NUMBER. [PART II. 

and with which the modern Coptic term Hof 
agrees. 

I cite the following curious instance in which the 
word Amenophis is written with an Omicron. 
Kenrick, when speaking of the statue commonly 
supposed to he that of Memnon, says, " Among the 
inscriptions of the Roman age which cover the legs 
of the statue, is one in which the writer records 
that he has heard the voice of the Memnon or 

Phamenoph. EkXvov avdriaavTog tyw lloj3Xtoc BctX- 
fiivog (ptovag rag Quaq Me/jvovoc rj <t>afj,evo<p. JJ 

In the same page he gives an instance in which 
the Omega is used in the place of the Omicron. 

AWa yap ov Mejmvova ovofiaZ.ovaiv 01 0»?j3cuo(, Qajiit- 
vwtya t)£ sivai to)v zyywpiwv ov tovto ayaXjma rjv 4 . 

It is remarkable that on the renowned statue 
of an Amenoph should be found inscribed the 
mystic number; for the $ (Ph) is clearly the 
Coptic definite article. Singular indeed would 
it be, if subsequent research should prove this 
colossal figure to be a representation, not as is 
generally considered, of Memnon, but of Amenoph 
the Pharaoh of the Exode ! 

With these remarks I dismiss, for the present, 
this portion of the subject. 

It has been well observed that " the mystic num- 
ber 666 yields so many words, that any attempt to 
supply the word is unsatisfactory, unless some cor- 



4 Ancient Egypt, vol. i. p. 312. 



CH. VII.] 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



385 



roborative evidence be supplied that the exposition 
is the right one V 

Before seeking extrinsic warrant for the solution 
now offered, I would direct attention to one strong 
intrinsic evidence in confirmation of its correctness. 
The view we are taking seems to meet a difficulty, 
long felt by those who have devoted themselves to 
the exposition of the Apocalypse. St. John ex- 
pressly declares, in chap, xiii., that the number 
of the Beast is the number of a man ; and again, in 
chap. xv. 2, he speaks of the number of his name. 
Hitherto, however, be it said with deference to the 
opinions of many eminent writers, no name has 
been adduced worthy of the circumstances under 
which the mystic number is, by the Holy Spirit, set 
forth for the interpretation of the Christian Church. 
When to the word "Aareivoc" (Lateinos) we apply 
the test " it is the name of a man/' the solution 
appears unsatisfactory in the extreme. The un- 
wearied researches of commentators tend to prove 
that no name has yet been propounded which com- 
mands our acceptance; and the variety of solutions 
offered demonstrates that the true one has as yet 
eluded research 6 . 

5 Forster's Mohammedanism Unveiled. 

6 " Nihil certi definire prsesuinimus — cum incertum admodum 
sit ex numero literarum alicujus nominis in unam summam 
collecto certum quendam hominem, cui nomen illud applicari 
potest, definire velle ; cum videamus unum quern que pro studio 
partium nomen effingere in quo numerum hunc inveniat, et eo 

c c 



386 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



[part II. 



This embarrassment seems to be met in a most 
extraordinary manner. Not only have we the name 
of a man, but that of the most notorious and invete- 
rate adversary of the Church of God which the 
world has ever produced. And, whereas it is said 
of the Beast that " the dragon gave him his power, 
and his seat, and great authority," we have in the 
course of this inquiry found the man whose acknow- 
ledged and boasted source of power was emphati- 
cally the arch-spirit of evil. 

If the mystic number be capable of typical treat- 
ment, and that number be the number of the name 
of a man, I would fearlessly challenge the Christian 
world to seek through the whole range of biography, 
sacred and profane, and fix upon the man among all 
those whose histories have been handed down to us, 
who by his notorious characteristics would be 
deemed best qualified for selection as the type of 
Antichrist; and all, on reflection, would, I am con- 
fident, with one voice name the Pharaoh oe the 
Exode. How often do we find that monarch cited 
as the type of Antichrist, by those even who, with- 
out having solved the mystic number, have neverthe- 
less been led by the startling circumstances of his 
eventful career, to view him under this portentous 
aspect. Take, for example, the following, from 

adversaries suos premere, aut saltern ipsorum argumentum ex 
nominis numero depromptum retorquere." — Limborch. Theol. 
Chris. VII. xi. 19. Quoted from Archdeacon "Wranghatn, 
p. 407. 



CH. VII.] 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



387 



Gill's Commentary. Speaking of the catastrophe at 
the Red Sea, he says : — " This is an emblem of the 
destruction of Antichrist and of all Antichristian 
states, of which Pharaoh and his host were types." 
Again, among the followers of Antichrist, he speaks 
of "the man of sin* the antitypical Pharaoh." His 
work abounds in such passages. 

The mystic number, as explained in the present 
volume, directly sanctions this long suspected 
analogy; while the character and idolatrous tenets 
of the Pharaoh of the Exode, as displayed in the 
preceding pages, cast a flood of light upon the ex- 
pression " the name and number of a man." The 
name of the man selected by universal opinion as, 
above all other, the peculiarly appropriate type of 
Antichrist, — a name not ostensibly recorded in 
Scripture, but handed down by a Pagan Priest (Ma- 
netho), and preserved, contrary to his own convictions, 
by an unbelieving Jew (Josephus), — that very name 
is found shrouded in the Mystic Number, which, al- 
most since the commencement of the Christian sera, 
has been the object of unwearied research in the 
learned world. Wonderful are the harmonies of 
Scripture, and marvellous the manner in which the 
Holy Spirit has seen fit to guide the sacred penman 
in unfolding the mysteries of Revelation ! The 
Inspired Volume, silent indeed throughout the his- 
tory of the Exode as to the specific title of the 
Pharaoh who perished in the Red Sea, takes up, as 
it were, in the depths of Prophecy, the thread 

c c 2 



388 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER, 



[PART II. 



which it had apparently let fall ; and there, in 
cryptographic characters, has graven with iron pen 
in the rock for ever the mystic cipher Amenoph ! 

That the Bible is the glossary of the Apocalypse 
will probably not admit of dispute, " the symbolic 
language being made up of ideas lying in the depths 
of Scripture 7 ." The words of Samson may be 
justly applied to any successful interpreter of pro- 
phecy : " If ye had not ploughed with my heifer, ye 
had not found out my riddle." With a view, then, 
of throwing light upon our subject, let us have 
recourse to Holy Writ, and see whether it speaks not 
of another Beast and his image, in its earlier pro- 
phetic records. 

In the book of the prophet Daniel, we read that 
" Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold, 
whose height was threescore cubits, and the breadth 
thereof six cubits." Now in the 7th chapter of 
the same book the king of Babylon is spoken of as 
a Beast. " Four great beasts came up from the 
sea, diverse one from another. The first was like a 
lion, and had eagle's wings." " These great beasts, 
which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out 
of the earth." Speaking of the first, Jeremiah 
says 8 , " The lion is come up from his thicket, and 
the destroyer of the Gentiles is on his way — " 
" Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon " observes W. 

7 Williams on the Apocalypse, p. 250. 

8 Chap, iv, 7. 



ch. vir.] 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



389 



Lowth, " whose monarchy is represented by a lion." 
Thus the Beast would be a specific as well as a 
generic symbol, and designate not only a kingdom, 
but a king; being a personification of Nebuchad- 
nezzar, the then head of the kingdom 9 . 

Thus the book of Daniel, as well as that of the 
Revelation, is found to present us with a Beast and 
his image. The proportions also of the one image 
contain two of the three mystic numbers compre- 
hended in the other; the height of the one being 
threescore cubits, and its breadth six cubits, the 
number of the other six hundred threescore and six. 
The similarity of punishment inflicted upon those 
who should refuse to worship either of these images 
is also remarkable. Nebuchadnezzar's decree is, 
" Whoso falleth not down and worshippeth shall the 
same hour be cast into the midst of the burning 
fiery furnace." And St. John says of the two- 
horned Beast, " He hath power to cause 

that as many as would not worship the image of the 
Beast should be killed." These relations are too 
manifest to have escaped observation. Thus Heng- 

9 Moses Stewart remarks on Eev. xiii. 3 : — " The Beast .... 
is ... . the imperial or supreme authority, i. e. the genus, of 
which kings are representative and successive individualities. 
A part of the time, e.g. in chap, xvii., John employs Qrjpwv to 
designate the individual emperor, in whose hands the imperial 
power then was. But there is nothing strange in this. Impe- 
rial power was successive, and was held by different individuals," 
— Commentary on the Apocalypse, vol. ii. p. 277. 



390 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



[PART II. 



stenberg says : " Even Irenseus, in his early age, 
seeks in the number 666 an import by itself, and 
brings it into connexion with the nature of the 
Beast. He supposes a connexion between it and 
the image of the sixty cubits high, and six cubits 
broad, which Nebuchadnezzar caused to be set up 
in the plain of Dura." " And indeed," adds Heng- 
stenberg, " if we look upon this image, not with our 
own, but with Israelitish eyes, if we consider the 
great attention which was paid to numbers in Old 
Testament times, as recent investigations have 
shown, nothing is more natural than to suppose 
that the book notices the dimensions of that symbol 
of the ungodly power of the world (for such the 
image was), because it saw in these a shadowy 
representation of the nature of that power. So 
colossal, and yet indissolubly bound to the fatal six, 
the broken twelve, and the incomplete seven ! " 

But further; it is a general remark, that the 
proportions of the image which Nebuchadnezzar set 
up do not accord with those of the human figure, 
the breadth of six cubits being much too diminutive 
for the height of sixty cubits. Taylor, in his Frag- 
ments to Calmet, for breadth would substitute 
depth; i. e. in place of the measure across the 
shoulders, he would take that from the back 
through to the chest, according to which mode of 
measurement, the stated dimensions are in exact 
proportion to the general conformation of the 
human frame. In vindication of such a version, 



CH. VII.] 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



391 



Taylor refers to Ezra vi. 3, the only other passage 
in Holy Scripture where the Hebrew word, which 
our translators have rendered "breadth," occurs. 
He remarks, that if the word be here rendered 
" breadth," then Cyrus decreed that the temple, in 
its reconstruction, should be three times as wide as 
the magnificent edifice erected by Divine command 
in the reign of Solomon; whereas, if the word be 
rendered " depth," the proportions (exclusive of the 
portico) exactly coincide with the dimensions given 
by the Divine Architect at the building of the first 
temple. 

It is remarkable, that in illustration of this ren- 
dering, the same author refers to the figure of an 
Egyptian deity, and indeed, if I mistake not, to that 
of Amenophis Memnon. Now, it is well known 
that Nebuchadnezzar conquered and overran Egypt 
some time before his erection of the golden image 
in the plain of Dura, and " there is every reason to 
believe," observes Kenrick, " that he married an 
Egyptian princess. The name of Queen Nitocris is 
so entirely Egyptian, that we cannot hesitate to 
consider her as a daughter of one of the Pharaohs. 
The wife of Psammitichus the First, and the 
daughter of Psammis or Psammitichus the Second, 
both bear this name. Coupling this circumstance 
with the absence of all hostility between Egypt and 
Babylon after the invasion of Nebuchadnezzar, it 
seems probable that that monarch married an 
Egyptian princess." 



392 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



[PART II. 



It might be inferred, then, that Nebuchadnezzar 
brought back with him on his return to Babylon 
not only an Egyptian wife, but, to gratify her, the 
model also of an Egyptian idol. As far as our in- 
formation extends, this was the sole occasion on 
which the monarch permitted himself to offer so 
great violence to his subjects. This compulsory 
enforcement of the worship of " the golden image " 
in itself tends to prove innovation ; for no coercion 
could have been needed to induce the Babylonians 
to fall prostrate before a representation of their 
national deities. 

If this position be correct, it is worthy of remark 
that in the captivity to which the Jewish people 
were subjected as a punishment for idolatry, the 
idol-worship of Egypt, with which their forefathers 
had been so infatuated, should thus forcibly have 
been pressed upon them, and that rather than 
succumb to the commands of the monarch, they, 
or at all events a portion of them, should have 
been content to yield their bodies to the devouring 
flame. 

But to return. The great God of the Baby- 
lonians being Baal, it may reasonably be inferred 
that this worship of the golden image, set up by 
Nebuchadnezzar, was an Egyptian refinement upon 
the mystic rites of that deity. In seeking for con- 
firmation of this hypothesis in Holy Writ, we read, 
that when the children of Israel were flying from 
the Pharaoh of the Exode, they encamped over 



CH. VII.] 



THE MYSTIC NUMBEK. 



393 



against Baal-zephon. Taking the numerical value 
of the letters which constitute this mystic name, a 
wonderful and unexpected light flashes upon us. 
Thus: B = 2, «=1, « = 1, A = 30, 1 = 7, £ = 5, = 
500, o = 70, v = 50. Total, 666. 

We find, then, that not only the title of the 
monarch, who perished in the Red Sea, returns 
666, hut that the name of some image of Baal, 
situated at the very spot where that monarch was 
engulphed, constitutes also 666. This is indeed a 
startling coincidence ! 

It must not, however, he concealed that Baal- 
zephon, as written in the Septuagint, does not ac- 
cord with this view; the word, as it there appears, 
being BtzXazinpuv or BeeXaztywv. I will only observe 
here, that the V (tsadi) is rendered by the Seventy 
sometimes by a Z, sometimes by a 2, sometimes by 
a T, and sometimes by a ¥ 1 ; thereby proving that in 
the treatment of this letter they were not guided by 
any fixed and definite rule. It will be remembered 
with regard to the title of the king of the Exode, 
that the Greeks spell it " Ansvuxjtig." We now see 
that by the translators of the Septuagint, the name 
of the place where that monarch perished is written 
" B£eA<7£7r#a>v." I would ask, then, whether, when 
rendered as in the foregoing pages, the etymological 

1 Thus ZopoftafitX (Zerubbabel), SeA/iwr (Zalrnon), Tavts 
(Zoan), and ^ovdofjL(papr)\ (or, as it stands in our translation, 
Zaphnath-Paaneab), all commence in the Hebrew text with a 
)S (tsadi). 



394 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



[PART II. 



elements found in each of these words do not so 
correlate and so confirm each other, as to give the 
strongest internal evidence that the mode of spelling 
adopted in either case is the correct one ? For while 
the name Apevoty designates its possessor as the in- 
carnation of the Hamitic Solar Serpent, the title 
BaaXZrfov points out the idol which bore it, as The 
Lord, the Solar Serpent. By this treatment, 
moreover, either term is found to respond to that 
mystic number in the Revelation, with which, by 
other processes of reasoning, they might be thought 
to be intimately connected. 

The term Zephon appears now to form so im- 
portant a feature in the solution of the mystic 
number of the Beast, that, notwithstanding all that 
has been said when analyzing the new name given 
to Joseph after the interpretation of Pharaoh's 
dream 2 , I shall venture some further remarks on 
its possible etymology. 

I have observed in a former chapter that the great 
characteristics of Post-diluvian Idolatry may have 
consisted of a Triad, of which the component parts 
were the Ship, the Serpent, and the Sun. Into the 
names of these three constituents the word Tsephon 
easily resolves itself, as thus, Hebraice (Tsi), the 
Ship, Eph, the Serpent, On, the Sun. Baal-zephon 
will then be, the Lord (of) the Ship, the Serpent, 
and the Sun. In this arrangement it is obvious 



2 See p. 130. See also p. 169. 



CH. VII.] THE MYSTIC NUMBER, 



395 



that a Hebrew element has been introduced, whereas 
it is clear that the deity in question was an Egyptian 
idol. To meet this objection, I would urge that 
two hundred and fifteen years of constant inter- 
course between the Hebrews and Egyptians must 
have had the effect, to a great extent, of amal- 
gamating their respective languages, and, especially, 
with reference to things in ordinary use by both 
peoples, the names must have become more or less 
assimilated 3 . In confirmation of this remark, I find 
that the Coptic term for a Ship is xoi (Sjoi) 4 , a 
term with which the Hebrew (Tsi) obviously 
corresponds. 

I had been inclined to adopt such a division of 
the word Zephon, without being aware that Irenseus 
had made an observation which somewhat tends to 
justify me. Speaking of the Mystic Number of the 
Beast, Moses Stewart says, "It is certainly a matter 
of some interest to know how this passage was 
understood in the earlier ages of Christianity; and 
it so happens, that our curiosity, in this parti- 
cular case, can in some measure be gratified. Ire- 
nseus (lib. v. c. 29, 30), contra Hsereses, has given 

3 See Eorster's " One Primeval Language," vol. ii. p. 3. 

4 XOI (Sjoi) is found in Daniel xi. 40, in the Coptic, as is 
V (Tsi) in the Hebrew version. Again, (Zoan), in the 
Septuagint Tavig, is written in Egyptian X^ItH or X£.ttl, 
(Gane or G-ani.) See Kitto's Cyc. Bib. Lit., voce Zoan. Thus 
the Hebrew ¥ (Tsadi) and the Coptic X (Sjoi) respond to each 
other. See Tattam's Coptic Manual. 



396 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



[PART II. 



us at some length his views respecting it. I subjoin 
a brief account of them. In chap. xix. he mentions 
666 as being, in his opinion, the proper reading of 
the number. The reason which he appears to 
assign for this is singular enough. It was in the 
600th year of Noah that the flood destroyed the 
earth, on account of the peculiar wickedness of its 
inhabitants. Afterwards, in aid of idolatry, Nebu- 
chadnezzar set up a golden image on the plain of 
Dura, which was sixty cubits high and six cubits 
broad. Put these three numbers together, and we 
have 666; a representation, or symbol of the ex- 
treme, and, as it were, aggravated wickedness of 
Antichrist, whose name is concealed in the mys- 
terious 666 ; for in him is all the wickedness of the 
Antediluvians (destroyed in the 600th year of 
Noah) conjoined with all the wickedness of Idolatry 
under Nebuchadnezzar, the most potent and impious 
of all Idolaters. Moreover, he says that witnesses 
personally acquainted with John testify in favour of 
this reading 5 ." 

In this curious opinion of that primitive Father, 
there seems much which harmonizes with the defi- 
nition of the word Zephon just now suggested. 
Irenseus takes 600 as symbolical of the flood, 
because it was in that year of Noah's life that God 
preserved him from the universal Deluge. When 
we remember that the ark was the instrument 
provided for the preservation of the Patriarch, and 
5 Commentary on the Apocalypse, vol. ii. 452. 



CH. VII.] THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



397 



that in consequence it became one of the most 
conspicuous features in the mysteries of heathen 
mythology, we are prepared to find this object of 
universal Idolatry symbolized by that number. 
Again, we learn that in Daniel's time " the Baby- 
lonians had a god called Bel ;" " and in the same 
place there was a great dragon which they of 
Babylon worshipped." (See Bel and the Dragon, 
v. 3 and 23.) Whether the Image, which Nebu- 
chadnezzar set up, united the joint elements of this 
duplex idolatrous worship, we know not. But if, as 
I have conjectured, it were erected in compliance 
with the wishes of his Egyptian queen, this is 
highly probable. The signification of " Baal" being 
not only " Lord," but " the Solar God," the image 
may have been a combination of the human form 
with that of the serpent, thus representing that great 
object of Egyptian worship, the Solar Serpent. 

Now, in various alphabets there are certain letters 
called serpentine. In the Greek, one of the most 
remarkable of these is the letter £, and indeed no 
figure can better portray the serpentine form. 

Mr. Bryant, in his book on pagan mythology, 
depicts two Egyptians worshipping, the one the 
bull, the other the serpent, and on the head of 
either votary is a serpent with the double curve 
exactly corresponding with the above-named letter. 

Hengstenberg, in his work on the Revelation, 
has observed this serpentine form of the letter £, 
but has not noticed the importance to be attached 
to the circumstance ; for the numerical value of £ is 



398 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



[PART II. 



GO. Regarding, then, 600 as the number which 
would aptly symbolize the ark, we may fitly insist 
upon the number 60 as correctly representing the 
serpent. 

Next, when we remember that traces of the six 
days' work of creation pervaded so large a portion 
of the heathen world — a fact evidenced by the al- 
most universal division of days into sevens, of which 
one constituted a rest day 6 ; and when, in connexion 
with this circumstance, we bear in mind that the 
sun has been so often regarded as the great origi- 
nator and conservator of the universe, it is perhaps 
not unreasonable to suppose that a Mystic Number 
of that great luminary would be six; and that, 
amid the changes which Paganism has undergone, 
that number might be retained. 

Thus, in resolving the word Zephon into these 
three obvious elements, Tsi-Eph-On, — the Ship, the 
Serpent, and the Sun, — we have, as the Mystic 
Numbers which would be most readily chosen to 
typify this Triad of ancient Idolatry, " six hundred 
threescore and six." 

And here an assertion concerning one of the 
peculiar characteristics of Egyptian worship may be 
thought to receive confirmation. It has been stated 
that the yearly sacrifices of Egypt amounted to 666. 
If this were the case, it would indicate that this 
number had a mystic significance in the national 
worship in a way hitherto inexplicable to us, and 

6 See Calmet's Dictionary, and Kitto's Cjc. Bib. Lit., voce 
Sabbath. 



CH. VII.] THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



399 



was interwoven with the very machinery of their 
idolatrous system. May not the numbers 666, 
which we have just now attached respectively to the 
Ship, the Serpent, and the Sun, (components as we 
know them to have been in the mythology of the 
land of Ham,) tend to throw a ray of light on the 
deep obscurity which hangs on this isolated observa- 
tion ? Its tendency, at least, is to sanction the view 
which has been taken in the present Volume. 

I will now proceed to point out the positions 
held by these three radicals, relatively to each 
other. Placing them thus, Tsi, Eph, On, and 
then withdrawing the central syllable, the result 
will be Tsi-on, rendered by our translators Zion, 
— that sacred mountain, which, before the Al- 
mighty was pleased to choose it as an habitation 
for Himself, wherein to place His glorious Name, 
was doubtless a spot consecrated to idolatrous 
practices; the Jebusites, while possessing it, there 
following the prescribed rites of heathenism. In 
accordance with this statement, we learn from the 
7th verse of the 5th chapter of the second book 
of Samuel, that Zion was the name of this city ere 
it was taken by David; and thus, by the etymology 
before us, Tsion would be the Ship of the Sun, a 
name, as we have seen, in exact agreement with 
the known tenets of Paganism 7 . 

7 G-liddon speaks of the Sun's boat, as the vehicle which bears 
the bodies of embalmed deceased Egyptians from the grave 
to judgment. (See " Otia Egyptiaca," p. 19.) And again, 
Birch, in a letter contained in that work, speaking of the 



400 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER. [PART II. 



Both these elements, the Ship and the Sun, are 
employed in the symbolism of Holy Scripture. St. 
Peter, Epist. 1, chap. iii. 20, 21, instances the 
ark as a type of the safety of the Christian Church, 
and in accordance with this teaching of the Apostle, 
we are taught to pray that persons brought to 
Christian Baptism may he " delivered from God's 
wrath, and received into the ark of Christ 1 s Church, 
and that being stedfast in faith, joyful through hope, 
and rooted in charity, they may so pass the waves of 
this troublesome world, that finally they may come to 
the land of everlasting life 8 ." 

With regard to the Sun as a type of our Saviour, 
I shall content myself with quoting an eloquent 
passage from Wordsworth's Lectures on the Apo- 
calypse: "The Sun is Christ. The dew of His 
Birth is of the womb of the morning. He is the 
Sun of Righteousness rising with healing in his 
wings. He is the Dayspring from on high. In 

sarcophagi of the monarchs of the eighteenth dynasty, tells 
us that they were decorated with representations of the 
Sun-mythos — the passage of the Sun through the twelve 
hours of the day, and those of the night. " The Sun," he con- 
tinues, " passes in a Bark always accompanied by seven Deities 
who differ according to the hour, and who appear to represent 
the moon and planetary system. This, which forms a clue to 
the mythology of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties, shows 
that at this period the twelve great gods of Egypt were the 
personifications of the Sun in the respective hours, and those 
of the twelve hours of night the lesser gods." P. 85. See 
Bryant, passim. 

8 First Collect in Baptismal Service. 



CH. VII.] 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



401 



the Book of the Prophet Zechariah, God says, / 
bring My servant, the East; and, Behold the Man: 
His name is the East. In the Apocalypse, the 
Church is clothed with the Sun, that is, with 
Christ ; and the angel who seals the elect comes 
from the rising of the Sun; and Christ says, 7, 
Jesus, am the bright and Morning Star; and, To 
him that overcometh I will give power over the 
nations; and he shall rule them with a rod of 
iron; and I will give him the Morning Star. 
Christ is the Light of the World ; and He pro- 
mises that the Righteous shall shine as the Sun in 
the kingdom of His Eat her 9 ." 

Tsion, then, or Zion, or Sion, for in either of 
these two latter ways we find it written in our 
Bibles, is in Pagan symbolism the Ship of the Sun, 
and in Christian Typology the Ark of Christ, the 
Temple of the Living God. Under the Jewish 
dispensation, it was that magnificent fane where 
God dwelt between the Cherubim; as says the 
Psalmist, " The Lord hath chosen Sion to be an ha- 
bitation for himself, he hath longed for her. This 
shall be my rest for ever, here will I dwell, for I 
have a delight therein." When for the sin of God's 
ancient people, "Zion was ploughed as a field, and 
Jerusalem became heaps, and the mountain of the 
house as the high places of the forest 1 ," then the 

9 P. 434. 

1 See Jer. xxvi. 18. Micah iii. 12. 

D d 



402 THE MYSTIC NUMBEK. [PART II. 

Christian Church became the Temple of the Living 
God. " God dwelleth in us." " Your body is the 
temple of the Holy Ghost." " Christ is in you the 
hope of glory." " The temple of God is holy, which 
temple ye are." Now let us look again at Tsion or 
Zion, replacing the radical Eph in the position from 
which we lately removed it — Zi-Eph-On — what find 
we here ? The Serpent in the very heart of Zion, 
the Devil enshrined in the living Temple of God. 
In connexion with this, the following remarkable 
texts can scarcely but suggest themselves to the 
mind. " He shall plant the tabernacle of his palace 
between the seas in the glorious holy mountain." 
"The man of sin, the son of perdition; . . . who 
opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called 
God, or that is worshipped; ... as God sitteth in 
the temple of God, shewing himself that he is 
God." 

The disposition of the letters which constitute 
the Mystic Number has been observed to depict a 
fact, very similar to that elicited from this analysis 
of the word Zephon. " The first and the last of 
these three letters," observes Hengstenberg, "are 
the common abbreviation of the name of Christ. 
The £ standing in the middle, is like the serpent, 
under the name of which Satan appears in Rev. 
xii. 9; and xx. 2. Through the whole, therefore, 
the Antichrist, that is raised up by Satan, is placed 
before our eyes. This ingenious hypothesis," adds 
Hengstenberg, "was first advanced by Heumann, 



CH. VII.] 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



403 



and afterwards recommended by Herder 2 ." Ob- 
serve how similarly the two explanations arrange 
themselves. 

Zi Eph On Zi (the serpent) On. 
X £ c Ch (the serpent) st 3 . 
Surely when Prophecy appears to symbolize Satan 
enshrined in the living temple of God, we may 
well pray, "Let thy continual pity cleanse and 
defend thy Church." When we gaze on the Ser- 
pent insidiously coiled in the bosom of the Chris- 
tian, we may well exclaim, " Cleanse the thoughts of 
our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit." 

The impression that the word Zephon may set 
forth Satan in the heart of Zion, will probably 
receive confirmation by a glance at the opening 
verse of the succeeding chapter 4 . When the mind 

2 Hengstenberg " On the Revelation of St. John," vol. ii. 
p. 54. 

3 " Heumannus says, Antichrist has the show of Christianity 
before and behind ; for x is the initial, and g the final letter (or, 
rather, the initial letter of the final syllable) of XpHrrog. But 
he cautiously adds, latet anguis in herbd — intus et in cute 
habet, to £, qticd est figwa Serpentis, i. e. Diaboli. Rev. xii. 9 ; 
xx. 2." Wrangham's "Works, vol. ii. p. 414. 

We may further observe that the £ standing in the place of 
pt, if we take these two latter characters as a sacred monogram, 
they may be supposed to represent pa law, the King Jehovah : 
and thus by the substitution of one for the other, we recover in 
the change, " Christ, the Lord of Hosts," or, " King Jehovah." 

4 Rev. xiv. 

D d 2 



404 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



[PART II. 



of St. John had been led to contemplate the dread 
catastrophe, of which the destruction of Pharaoh at 
Baal-zephon appears to be the type, he "looked, 
and lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with 
him an hundred, forty and four thousand, having 
his Father's name written in their foreheads. And 
I heard," continues the Apostle, "a voice from 
heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the 
voice of a great thunder;" — an allusion probably 
to that awful concussion of the roaring sea, when 
its unpent waves met over the heads of the Egyp- 
tian army. 

Sion has no longer the Serpent, but the Lamb, 
in the midst of her. " The darkness is past, the 
true light now shine th." Christ's enemies are en- 
gulphed ; the first-fruits of his travail surround 
the Victorious Conqueror. That old serpent, the 
Devil, is cast out, and Sion is again the city of the 
living God and of the Lamb 5 . 

The letters which constitute the Mystic Number, 
may be thought, possibly, to portray in hieroglyphic 
characters the history of the Serpent from its rise 
to its fall. Viewing them from right to left, as in 
the most ancient style of writing, we have q its 

5 This etymology of the word Zephon will not be found to 
interfere materially with the signification of the title conferred 
on Joseph, for, by regarding the first element as Tsi, the Ship, 
the import of the entire word will be — The Solar Serpent of 
the Ark. 



CH. VII.] THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 405 

youth or rise, £ its full maturity, x its final destruc- 
tion, pierced by the arrow of. Christ 6 . 




A further confirmation of the position that Ame- 
noph is the type of Antichrist is supplied by Jose- 
phus, in a passage already quoted, in which mention 
is made of " Amenophis the son of Papis, a person 
who for his wisdom and knowledge of futurity was 
deemed more than a man." This priest, or "Pro- 
phet," is represented as the chief instigator of the 
monarch's acts, and as stimulating his hatred 
against the children of Israel. To the reputed 
wisdom and foreknowledge of this man probably 
was it that the king of Egypt owed much of his 
power, his influence, and daring opposition to the 
Most High ; — an audacity which, overleaping the 
instigation of his spiritual adviser, urged him on 
in his mad career, (even after the latter had, in 
horror and despair, terminated his own existence,) 



6 See Ps. xlv. 5, and Isa. xxvii. 1. 



406 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



[PART II. 



until he brought down upon his guilty head the 
uttermost vengeance of the Almighty. 

We see, then, that not only the title of the 
monarch of the Exode, hut the name also of his 
prophet and counsellor was Amenoph ; that mystic 
name of blasphemy, which may possibly have been 
a sacred title assumed by the Pharaoh on ascending 
the throne, being borne also by the Priest of Ham 
the Solar Serpent. Shall we regard this son of 
Papis as a type of that second beast who " had two 
horns like a lamb, and spake as a dragon?" For 
he also seems to have exercised " all the power of 
the first beast before him," and it is probable, from 
the character given of him by Josephus, that he 
did "great wonders," &c, and deceived "them 
that dwelt on the earth by the means of those 
miracles which he had power to do in the sight of 
the beast." He too may have " caused the earth 
and them which dwell therein " to worship the first 
beast, "whose deadly wound" — inflicted by the 
teaching of Joseph — " was," by the subsequent apos- 
tasy of the Egyptian monarch and his deluded 
people, " healed." He too may have given life and 
voice to "the image of the Beast," as had been 
done in the instance of the statue of Amenophis- 
Memnon. Lastly, he may have commanded all 
under penalty of death to fall down and worship 
the idol which he had set up. Or again, does he 
foreshadow the false Prophet of Kev. xvi. 13, and 
xix. 20, who is represented as perishing with the 



CII. VII.] 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



407 



Beast in the "burning flame?" To these queries 
I can venture no answer; yet one point is remark- 
able, that whereas the name of the monarch and of 
his priest 7 and prophet is identical, the numerical 
value of each is 666. And this, I will observe, 
removes all difficulty as to whether it be the first 
or second beast whose name is thus mystically 
designated; for both first and second, nay more, 
the image also which was erected, are alike sha- 
dowed forth by the symbol : king, false prophet, and 
image, — alike give up, as the value of the letters 
which constitute their name, 666. 

Again. In the first general Epistle of St. John, 
the beloved Apostle speaks of Antichrist both 
generically and specifically. There is the " to tov 
avTiyjoioTov " and the " o uvti^oigtoq" rendered in 
our translation the " spirit of Antichrist," and 
"the Antichrist." The spirit of Antichrist, the 
Apostle affirms, was in the world in his day; his 
last great personal advent was to be looked for at a 
subsequent period. Nor are we here, if I mistake 
not, without an analogy to be drawn from the 
Egyptian monarchy. The generic title of the kings 
of Egypt, which we render Pharaoh, is, as I have 
elsewhere shown, generally supposed to be derived 
from Phe Ka, the Sun. Taking the combined 
numerical value of these letters, <££pa, the result 

7 Mr. Grliddon mentions having in his possession an Egyp- 
tian coffin which " once held the corpse of the Osirian priest, 
and scribe of Thebes, Amn — m—oph." Otia ^Egyptiaca, p. 52. 



408 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



[PART II. 



will be: ( p- 500, £ = 5, ? = 1 00, a = 1. Total, 606. 
Here let us call to mind the royal badge of Egyp- 
tian power. It was the Basilisk — the serpentine £ 
— which proudly reared its head on the monarch's 
brow. The title Phe Pa, taken singly, does indeed 
fall short of the number required ; but " the 
dragon" ("that old serpent, called the Devil, and 
Satan") u gave him his power, and seat, and great 
authority;" from him — the arch-spirit of evil — the 
Pharaoh avowedly derived his power. This was the 
professed source of his descent, the warrant of his 
authority, the badge of his omnipotence : and the 
value of the great dracontic letter £ is, as I have 
observed, 60 8 . Thus the arrogant generic title of 
the Pharaohs, combined with the blasphemous 
badge of their power, forms in combination 666 9 . 

8 It is remarkable, that while the badge of the Pharaohs ex- 
pressed numerically sixty, the same number should be peculiarly 
attached to the Crocodile, so often employed as a symbol of 
those haughty monarchs. The Egyptian account of this animal 
was, that sixty days elapsed before its eggs were laid, that the 
eggs were in number sixty, that sixty days passed ere they were 
hatched, that the animals had sixty vertebras in their spine, that 
they possessed sixty nerves, that their teeth amounted to sixty, 
that the period of their annual torpidity and fasting lasted sixty 
days, and finally that they attained to the age of sixty years. — 
See AVilkinson's Egypt, vol. v. p. 237. 

9 The Greeks and Romans being generally supposed to have 
derived much of their mythology from Egypt, it may be con- 
sidered worthy of remark, that the regal title, both of the one 
and of the other, may possibly be traced to that source. Thus, 
m at, may be derived from Am, a fountain or emanation, and £ 



CH. VII.] 



THE MYSTIC NUMBEE. 



409 



Yet again. " Egypt" says Gliddon, " was termed 
Ham, or Kheme, by the Egyptians, from the earliest 

period of hieroglyphical writing. 

Kah " is the Land of Ham 1 ; — " in Coptic 4 KahJ 
meaning a country, and " being " determinative of 
geographical appellatives V Now, if we take the 
numerical value of Xe^u Ka f KH and X being inter- 
changeable 3 ), the result is as follows: ^=600, 
£ = 5, ix - 40, k = 20, a = 1 . Total, 666. 

But this is not the only method of writing the 
ancient name of Egypt, productive of a similar 
result. The Marquis Spine to, speaking of the term 
AiyvTTTog, says : — " This name of Egypt seems a cor- 
ruption of the Egyptian word Kupt, to which the 
Greeks added the syllable ai *, and the termination 

the serpentine symbol, and thus indicate the imagined source 
of kingly power. Thus again, Eex may be resolved into Ee, the 
Sun, as the fountain of light, and £ the Serpent, the so-called 
creator of all things ; and in combination constitute the Solar 
Serpent. It is curious that in Latin the letter £ is represented, 
not by the serpentine figure, but by that of the cross. 

1 Ancient Egypt, p. 40. 

2 Ibid. p. 16. 

3 Thus Plutarch says, " Tov Aiyvrrrov . . . Xrj/uut tcaXovaiv." 

4 Ai, or Aia, signifies a district, or a province ; and, as most 
provinces in Egypt were insular, it is often taken for an island. 
In other parts it was of much the same purport as am of the 
Greeks, and betokened any region or country. It was from 
hence that so many places have been represented by the Greeks 
as plurals, and are found to terminate in ai ; such as Athenai, 
Thebai, &c. There are others in eta; as Cha?roneia, Coroneia, 
Eleia. In others it was rendered short, as in Oropia, Ellopia, 



410 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



[PART II. 



os, and made hiyvirr, and then Aijvtttoq. The sig- 
nification of this word Kupt, or Gupt, is simply a 
Copt 5 , that is, an inhabitant of that country, which 
we now call Egypt, but which, by the Egyptians 
themselves, was called kkjlr.1 (Kemi), or KHJUie 
(Kerne), a name which we find in the enchorial or 
demotic text of the Eosetta Stone, kjuu, that is, Kmi, 
leaving out the intermediate vowel H or e, always 
corresponding to that of AtyuTrroc, of the Greek 
translation. It means black, and it seems that it 
was so called on account of the black mud which 
the waters of the Nile left on the land. For this 
fact we have the authority of Herodotus ; and it is 
even mentioned by Virgil, in the fourth of the 
Georgics, who says — 

e Et viridem JEgyptum Nigra foecundat arena 6 .' " 

Let us take the numerical value of yspi au % = 
600, £ =5, M = 40, t=10, o = l, t = 10. Total, 666. 

Whether, then, we refer to the " earliest period 
of hieroglyphical writing," or to the enchorial or 

&c. Thus the land of Ion was termed Ionia ; that of Babylon, 
Babylonia ; from Assur came Assyria ; from Ind, India ; in all 
which the region is specified by the termination. In the name 
of Egypt this term preceded, that country being styled Ai-gupt, 
AiyvirTog, the land of the Grupti, afterwards Cupti, and Copti. 
— Bryant, vol. i. p. 112. 

Eaber gives the same etymology. "-Ai f Aia, a country." 

5 Copt, now Kepht. Qu. people or land of the princely ser- 
pent ? 

6 Elements of Hieroglyphics, &c, by Marquis Spineto, 
p. 340. 



CH. VII.] 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



411 



demotic text of the country, a similar result is 
arrived at : the ancient name of Egypt returns in 
both instances the mystic number 666. 

Once more. Osburn, speaking of Memphis, 
observes : — " Its frequently -recurring hieroglyphic 

name is j*^ 9 mn-nun, which the Copts 

© 

have written Ag.en.qi almost without variation. 
The Greek M^t^ig is a Hellenized version of the 
same name. The Hebrew ?]1JD and ?pj are mere 
abbreviations of it 7 ." 

" To this day, on the spot, its name is by some 
of the natives pronounced Minify by others Memif 
differing in m and n from the Hebrew (rather from 
the Egyptian) Menoph V 

Chevalier Bunsen says : " The manner of writing 
Men for ^4men for Ammon is new." Thus we get 
Memphis = Menoph = Amenoph, and arrive at the 
conclusion that the name of this renowned city was 
identical with that of Amenophis, who assumed to 
be the incarnation of the Hamitic Solar Serpent. 
Hence not only the ancient name of Egypt itself, 
but that of the capital city of the Pharaohs, gives 
alike 666. 

But here an important point claims our attention. 
It was to be expected that the solution of the sacred 
mystery would be arrived at through the medium 
of those characters which enter into the composition 

7 Monumental History of Egypt, vol. ii. p. 92. 
s Fragments to Calmet, vol. iv. p. 107. 



412 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



[PART II. 



of the language in which the Apostle wrote ; that 
the secret of the mystic number would be disclosed 
through the instrumentality of the Greek alphabet. 
But a striking peculiarity of the solution here 
offered is, that the same result is obtained, whether 
we refer to the original language of the New Testa- 
ment, or to that of the land whence this system of 
symbolism is taken. 

Speaking of the language of the ancient Egyp- 
tians, Mr. Gliddon observes: — "When the intro- 
duction of Christianity caused the hieroglyphic, 
hieratic, and demotic characters to be abandoned 

the Greco-Coptic alphabet was substituted 

in lieu of the ancient system; but the language, 
beyond a few Hellenic engraftments, and a few 
idioms introduced by Jews, Romans, and Arabs, 
remained nearly the same, till the invasion of 
Aamer-ebn-al-As, and the establishment of the 
Saracenic Caliphate in a.d. 540 9 ." 

It is singular that, whereas the ancient Greek 
alphabet has been supposed to derive its origin 
from Egypt, so the Greek letters, considerably 
augmented in number, should, after the lapse of so 
many centuries, have found their way back to their 
parent soil, and have been adopted as the alphabetic 
exponents of the Coptic tongue. 

On consulting the Coptic alphabet, it will be 
found that a large majority of the letters not only 
still bear a great resemblance to the Greek, but 
that in point of numeration they possess a similar 

9 Ancient Egypt, p. 23. 



CH. VII.] 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



413 



value. The Bau also, employed in the Greek to 
indicate a number, finds its equivalent in the Coptic 
$>, which, on turning to Tattam's vocabulary, ap- 
pears not to be used in the construction of words, 
but to be enlisted only in the service of numbers 1 . 

This is an important fact, the Bau being one of 
those Greek characters employed by the Apostle to 
indicate the number of the Beast. 

In the Greek Testament they stand thus — y£&. 

In the Coptic thus — y^>> 

In both alphabets their power is the same. 

Now let us construct in Coptic characters the 
several titles which we have already set forth in 
Greek, and test their value by the numerical powers 
of the letters. I append the following alphabet for 
the convenience of the reader. 



The Coptic Alphabet. 





a 


1 


JUL 


m 


40 




ps 


700 


& 


b 


2 




n 


50 




5 


800 


V 


g 


3 




X 


60 




sh 


900 




d 


4 


o 


o 


70 


q 


f 


90 


e 


e 


5 


n 


p 


80 




kh 




? 


z 


7 


P 


r 


100 




h 




H 


e 


8 


c 


s 


200 


X 


S J 




O 


th 


9 


T 


t 


300 




gh 




J 


i 


10 




u 


400 


f 


ti 




K 


k 


20 




ph 


500 








X 


1 


30 


X 


ch 


600 









1 " $> nota numerica 6." 



414 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



[PART II. 



His Prophet. 


. rH O O O O 

8 -4 «i CD £ O 


CO 
CO 
CO 


His City. 


§ rH O O O O 

1 *4 $ CD K O 


CO 
CO 
CO 


His Kingdom 
Demotically. 


. O O O rH O 
SO tH rH rH 

1 CO 

O (I). ■ •( M «« M 


CO 
CO 
CO 


His Kingdom in 
Hieroglyphics. 


O fcO O O rH 

1 - 

§ A W «J S/ »<J 

^ o w l V 


CO 
CO 
CO 


His generic 
Title. 


. O l& O rH CO O 

goo o co 
•§ J 1 (MS 

»9" CD a, *4 M <g 


CO 
CO 
CO 


His Image. 


gCMrHr-'OJ^lOOOO 

| CO O 

•to 

goq •<} ,< Ktcd^O C 


CO 
CO 
CO 


The wilful King. 


J rH O k£S O O O 

§ rH >.q o 

•to 

cd e o & 


CO 
CO 
CO 



CH. VII.] 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



415 



Clearly, it is only by the response to the Apoca- 
lyptic symbolism being found in Egypt that such a 
remarkable concentration of terms possessing a like 
numerical value in their respective alphabets, and 
referring to so wondrous a series of events^ could 
by any possibility be attained. 

I annex the following quotation from Osburn, 
as illustrative of the marvellous manner in which 
the mystic number of the Apocalypse still clings to 
the land and destinies of Egypt : — " That Egypt 
would be one of the first spoils of the fierce fana- 
ticism of Mohammed and his followers, might have 
been inferred from its contiguity to the Arabian 
desert ; and such was actually the case. In the 
year six hundred and sixty-six Egypt fell before 
the sword of the Caliph Omar and his general 
Amrou, and to this day she is bowed to the earth 
with the Moslem yoke which they laid upon her 
neck, and which has never been removed 2 ." 

And here let it be remembered, that in the 
chapter on the Brazen Serpent in the Wilderness, 
we saw occasion to connect the elevation of that 
impaled reptile with the blasphemous theory of 
religion advocated in the land of Ham, and to re- 
cognize an allusion to this circumstance in the 
celebrated defence of St. Stephen before the Jewish 
Sanhedrim. Let the reader be reminded also 
with respect to the god Remphan there spoken of, 



2 Monumental History of Egypt, vol. i. p. 15. 



416 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



[PART II. 



that profiting by the opinion of learned men con- 
cerning the correct reading of the word, we pro- 
ceeded to break it up into its constituent elements 
as suggested by Egyptian association, and found 
reason for the supposition that R'Eph-ain, the 
fountain or source of the Solar Serpent, was the 
original conformation of the title. Now let us 
take the numerical value of these constituting 
etters, and we obtain as the result, p— 100, e = 5, 
4> = 500, a = 1, i = 10, v = 50. Total, 666 3 . 

3 I will here hazard a remark which perhaps by many will 
be deemed too fanciful. I adduce it, however, less by way of 
corroborative proof than of curious coincidence. 

The last native monarch of the mighty kingdom of Egypt 
was Cleopatra, that cruel and luxurious Queen who closed her 
magnificent but most disgraceful career by the poison of an 
asp. " Now it is nearly certain (observes a correspondent in 
JBentley's Miscellany, when writing concerning the Cobra di 
capello,) that this is the snake which the ancients described 
under the name of Cleopatra's asp." " It was a part of the 
superstition of the Egyptian priests to believe, that whoever 
was accidentally bitten by the Thermuthis or deadly asp, was 
divinely favoured. To some such notion may possibly be re- 
ferred Cleopatra's choice of death." Deane, p. 133. 

Removing the final a as possibly a Greek termination to an 
Egyptian appellative, the numerical value of the letters which 
constitute the name of Cleopatra is as follows: k=20, \=30, 
£ =5, o=70, tt=:80, a = l, r =300, p=100. Total, 606. But 
the value of the great serpentine letter | is, as I have observed, 
60. Thus the name of the royal victim, combined with the 
badge of that dread being from whom she professed to derive 
her power, constitutes 666. Hence the death of the last 



CH. VII.] 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



417 



I proceed to corroborate the accuracy of the 
foregoing solution by adducing a remarkable coin- 
cidence taken from the Apocalyptic pages. On 
turning to the 15th chapter of Eevelation we read 
as follows : " And I saw another 4 sign in heaven, 
great and marvellous, seven angels having the seven 
last plagues ; for in them is filled up the wrath of 
God. And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled 
with fire: and them that had gotten the victory 
over the beast, and over his image, and over his 
mark, and over the number of his name, stand on 
the sea of glass, having the harps of God. And 
they sing the Song of Moses the servant of God, 
and the Song of the Lamb." 

Almost all commentators, I believe, unite in 
asserting that by this Song of Moses we are to un- 
derstand, not the prophetical song recorded in 
Deut. xxxii., but that sung by the great leader of 
the Israelites, after the overthrow of their enemies 
at the Red Sea. 

monarch of ancient Egypt may not have been without its 
reference to the Mystic Number we are considering : — the de- 
throned queen making a last appeal to the aid of her serpentine 
deity, and clasping to her bosom the appalling incarnation of 
that Arch-spirit of evil — the deadly Solar Serpent — the royal 
emblem of which had been but now torn from her brow ! 

4 The intelligent reader, in observing the allusion to the 
great sign (peya arj/jLuov), spoken of at the commencement of 
the 12th chapter, will remember that there the series of Egyp- 
tian symbolism was supposed to open, as here, where the aXXo 
fiiya a^fjidovis beheld, it is presented to us as drawing to a close, 

E e 



4 



418 THE MYSTIC NUMBER. [PART II. 

Speaking of the seven last plagues, Mr. Dalton 
has the following remark : — 

" We may notice that there is a remarkable 
similarity between them and the plagues that fell 
upon the Egyptians which ended in the overthrow" 
of Pharaoh and of his host in the Red Sea— upon 
which the Israelites sing the song that Moses was 
inspired to write for the occasion, and which we 
find in the book of Exodus. As they who get the 
victory over the Beast are said in chap. xv. 3, to 
sing the Song of Moses, and as there is a largeness 
of expression in the words of that song beyond what 
belongs to the deliverance of" (from) "Pharaoh, 
there can be but little doubt that the overthrow of 
Pharaoh and his host was typical of the destruc- 
tion of Antichrist and his confederacy, which will 
take place on c that great day of God Almighty, 
in a place called Armageddon;' when 4 the kings 
of the earth and of the whole world shall be found 
ranked under the banners of the Antichrist, en- 
ticed thither to their ruin by the display of mira- 
culous power exhibited by the Dragon, the Beast, 
and the false prophet 5 .' " 

This idea is by no means new or confined 
to Christians. Dr. Gill says 6 , " The Jews have a 
notion that the very song of Moses itself will be 
sung in the world to come, in the days of the 
Messiah; for they say, there are in it the times of 

5 Bev. xvi. 13 — 16. Dalton' s Commentary, vol. ii. p. 534. 

6 Commentary, in loco. 



CH. VII.] 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



419 



the Messiah, and of Gog and Magog, and of the 
resurrection of the dead, and the world to come." 
He adds that " this song was sung by the Levites 
in the daily service." 

The parallelism on which I have insisted between 
the overthrow of Pharaoh and that of Antichrist, 
receives therefore signal confirmation from the pecu- 
liar imagery employed by St. John in the opening 
scene of the 15th chapter of the Revelation. As 
the passage stands in our version, the " sea of 
glass " would seem opposed to the tumultuous and 
tossing ocean of a wicked world 7 ; and the clear- 
ness of the one, to the turbid depths and troubled 
waters of the other. The idea is well illustrated 
by a passage in the Prophet Isaiah, " The wicked 
are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, 
whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no 
peace, saith my God, to the wicked." 

The song of " them who had gotten the victory," 
being one of triumph, the commingling of the sea 
with fire would seem to intimate, that on them 
are shed the sanctifying influences of that Holy 
Spirit, who, in tongues of lambent flame, descended 
on the Apostles on the day of Pentecost. 

It should be remarked that another reading of 
the passage before us tends yet further to bring 
out the analogy we are tracing. Mr. Scott in his 
Commentary has the following remark upon the 
verse before us. " Some think that etti (translated 
7 See Rev. xvii. 15. 
e e 2 



420 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER. [PART II. 



on) may be rendered at and that they who had 
"gotten the victory over the Beast," &e., are 
represented by the sacred seer as standing by, or 
at, the shore of the glassy sea 8 , unhurt and un- 
dismayed; as the children of Israel having passed 
through the Red Sea, standing on the shore, saw 
their enemies dead before them. Again. It has 
been thought that as a reading tOvuv (the nations), 
is preferable to aylwv (the saints). Those, who 
assent in the main to the positions here advocated, 
will be disposed to adopt the former reading not 
only as borne out by the authority of manuscripts, 
but as eliciting a new harmony between type and 
antitype. For the victory of Moses over Pharaoh 
is a symbol and a pledge of the triumph of Christ 
over every Antichristian confederacy; and the song 
of victory passing from the accomplishment of the 
one, breaks into exultation in anticipation of the 
sure and certain fulfilment of the other. 

With these emendations the words of Mr. Ains- 
worth are so much in accordance, that I cannot 
refrain from quoting them. " With this song of 
victory over Pharaoh, the Holy Ghost compares 
the song of those who have gotten the victory over 
the spiritual Pharaoh, the beast (Antichrist), when 
they stand by the sea of glass mingled with fire (as 
Israel stood here by the Red Sea) having the harps 
of God (as the women here had timbrels, ver. 20), 
and they sing the song of Moses, the servant of 

8 So Geneva version. "They stood at the glassy sea." 



CH. VII.] 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



421 



God, and the song of the Lamb, the Son of God 9 ." 
I need only add, that under this aspect of the 
vision, the fire, commingled with the waves, would 
symbolize rather the vengeance of God, and har- 
monize with the assurance of the Apostle, that 
" our God is a consuming fire V 

We will now pass in review the various results at 
which we have arrived in the present chapter. 

(1.) We find that the custom of designating 
words by numbers which obtained in the Apostolic 
age, was not only made use of in Egypt, but that 
the practice of constructing verses, so that the 
numerical value of the letters of each verse might 
be equivalent, was an Egyptian accomplishment. 

(2.) We observe that the mode of arranging 
names according to the value of the component 
letters was enlisted in the service of Heathen 
Mythology, as the words MeiOpaq, E^/aXec, NaAoc, 
A(3pa£,ac, sufficiently testify. 

(3.) Pursuing the train of thought, thus sug- 
gested, we arrive at the fact that the sacred mytho- 
logical name of the Pharaoh who perished in the 
Red Sea, presents to us, in the combined power of 
its characters, the Mystic Number of the Beast, 666. 

(4.) Proceeding to take the name of the god 
whose image is supposed to have stood on the spot 
where this terrible overthrow took place, and evolv- 

9 Quoted from Adam Clarke, Exod. xv. 

1 See Eom. xii. 19, compared with 2 Thess. i. 8. 



422 



THE MYSTIC NUMBER. [PART II. 



ing its numerical value, we discover that the result 
produces a like return, 666. 

(5.) We observe, moreover, not only that the 
sacred title of this Egyptian monarch and of the 
idol before whose Fane he perished alike respond 
to the great Apocalyptic enigma, but that the 
Title and Badge of the Pharaonic Dynasty, when 
taken in combination, constitute also 666. 

(6.) We are struck by the circumstance that 
the name of the prophet of this haughty monarch, 
being similar to that of his royal master, presents 
likewise in its numerical value the Mystic Number, 
666. 

(7.) We find also that the ancient name of 
Egypt, the country over which Amenoph ruled 
supreme, whether hieroglyphically or demotically 
expressed, returns alike 666. 

(8.) And, that not the old denomination only by 
which the country was designated, but the name of 
the city of the great king, or, if not so, at least a 
city intimately connected with the history of the 
Israelites while sojourning in the land, yields the 
Mystic Number, 666. 

(9.) Again. When the Israelites in the Wilder- 
ness, ignoring the miraculous passage of the Exode, 
revived an idolatrous system which, branded as it 
had been by the visible displeasure of the Almighty, 
should have been held by them in eternal abhor- 
rence, we find grounds for the presumption that the 
title of the idol whose worship they established, 



CH. VII.] THE MYSTIC NUMBER. 



423 



if etymologically restored, returns in numerical 
value, 666. 

(10.) In addition to this vast accumulation of 
proof, we recognize this singular fact ; that, whether 
we examine the numerical value of these several 
titles in the language in which the Apocalypse was 
written, or in that of the country in which the 
wonders of the Exode were enacted, alike in Greek 
and Coptic character, we obtain one uniform result 
— the Mystic Number of the Revelation, 666. 

Lastly. As crowning evidence to the truth of 
the position advocated in these pages, we find the 
Holy Spirit in the triumphant song, recorded in 
the 15th chapter of the Revelation, establishing 
this wonderful prophetic link between the signal 
triumph achieved by Moses of old, and those 
mighty victories yet to be consummated by the 
Lamb; thus, it would appear, indissolubly uniting 
the fate of Antichrist with the fortunes of that 
rebellious monarch, whose " terrible destiny it was, 
to leave to after times the strongest exemplifica- 
tion of daring wickedness and mad impiety in his 
life, and of the vengeance of God in his death, 
that ever was enacted on the earth V 



2 Israel in Egypt, p. 416. 



424 



THE TYPE OF ANTICHRIST. [PART II. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE TYPE OF ANTICHRIST. 

In selecting a title for the present volume, it 
appeared to me that the object I had in view could 
not be more aptly expressed than by denominating 
it "The Type of Antichrist." Exception may, 
however, possibly be taken to the term employed, 
as connected with the debated theory of Scriptural 
typology. To this objection I am now in a position 
to address myself. 

It has been held by many learned men that the 
types of Scripture are of a twofold character, — 
the one inferred, or type suggested to the mind of 
the reader by similarity to Gospel facts, — the other 
innate, or type sanctioned as such by the express 
declaration of the Holy Spirit of God. The point 
is clearly and fully stated by Mr. Fairbairn. Speak- 
ing of a school of English and Continental divines, 
he says \ " They held that there was a twofold sort 



1 Typology of Scripture, vol. i. p. 16, et seq. 



CH. VIII.] THE TYPE OF ANTICHRIST. 



425 



of types, the one innate, consisting of those types 
which are somewhere in Scripture itself declared to 
have been such and explained ; the other inferred, 
consisting of such as, though not particularized in 
Scripture, were yet on probable grounds inferred by 
interpreters as conformable to the analogy of faith, 
and the practice of the inspired writers in regard to 
similar examples. The latter class were understood 
by the persons we speak of, to be equally proper 
and valid with the other, and were distinguished 
from those which were sometimes forged by Papists, 
and were at variance with the analogies just men- 
tioned. Of course, from their very nature, they 
could only be employed for the support and confir- 
mation of truths already received, and not to prove 
what was otherwise doubtful; but still, they were 
not on that account to be less diligently searched 
for, or less confidently used, because thus only could 
Christ be found in all the Scriptures, which all 
testify of Him." 

To these two classes, I imagine, a third must be 
added, — the involved type, or type implied to be 
such from its connexion with others of an innate 
character. The involved type, it will be found, 
rests on a firmer basis than the inferred type ; for 
while the authority of the latter may have its 
foundation only in the imagination of the reader, 
the position of the former in the category of types 
is established by complicity of association. 

In which of these three classes is the Type of 



426 



THE TYPE OF ANTICHRIST. [PART II. 



Antichrist comprehended ? The Pharaoh of the 
Exode would almost of necessity claim a place in 
the number of inferred types, and such is precisely 
the position, almost universally, assigned him. But 
if the validity of the involved type be admitted, he 
assumes a yet more definite position in the scale of 
typology. For Moses being an innate type of 
Christ, and the passage of the Red Sea an innate 
type of Christian Baptism, the position occupied by 
the Egyptian king with respect to these types 
confers upon him a status among the types by 
implication. 

Unless, however, we can assign him a yet higher 
grade than this, his claim to be considered in any 
degree a typical personage will not pass by all 
unquestioned. For the more cautious divine will 
insist that no person or thing can be safely classed 
among the types of Scripture, but such as have the 
sanction of the written Word. 

" There is no other rule," says Bishop Marsh, " by 
which we can distinguish a real from a pretended 
type, than that of Scripture itself. There are no 
other possible means by which we can know that a 
previous design, and a preordained connexion ex- 
isted: whatever persons or things, therefore, re- 
corded in the Old Testament, were expressly 
declared by Christ or his Apostles to have been 
designed as prefigurations of persons or things 
relating to the New Testament, such persons or 
things so recorded in the former are types of the 



CH. VIII.] THE TYPE OF ANTICHRIST. 



427 



persons or things with which they are compared in 
the latter. But if we assert, that a person or 
thing was designed to prefigure another person or 
thing, where no such prefiguration has been declared 
by Divine Authority, we make an assertion for which 
we neither have nor can have the slightest founda- 
tion V 

Again, he says, " By what means shall we deter- 
mine, in any given instance, that what is alleged 
as a type, was really designed as a type ? The only 
possible source of information on this subject is 
Scripture itself. The only possible means of know- 
ing that two distant, though similar historical facts 
were so connected in the general scheme of Divine 
Providence, that the one was designed to prefigure 
the other, is the authority of that work in which the 
scheme of Divine Providence is unfolded 3 ." 

However much the paucity of innate or declared 
types may cause this stringent canon of the Bishop 
to be questioned, yet all will admit two conditions 
to be indispensably necessary to constitute a type, 
— similarity and Divine intention, "It is admitted 
by common consent," observes Mr. Fairbairn, " first, 
that in the character, action, or institution, 
which is denominated the type, there must be a 
resemblance of some kind to what corresponds with 

2 Lectures, p. 373. Quoted from Fairbairn's Typology, 
vol. i. p. 27. 

3 Lectures, p. 372. Fairbairn, vol. i. p, 34. 



428 THE TYPE OF ANTICHRIST. [PART II. 

it under the Gospel; and second, that the former 
must not be of any character, action, or institution, 
occurring in Old Testament Scripture, but such 
only as had their ordination from God, and were 
designed by Him to foreshadow the Gospel antitype. 
These two conditions enter as essential elements 
into the constitution of a type, and must meet 
together in every thing to which the name can with 
truth and justice be applied." "For," as Bishop 
Marsh has justly remarked, u to constitute one 
thing the type of another, something more is wanted 
than mere resemblance. The former must not only 
resemble the latter, but must have been designed 
to resemble the latter. It must have been so 
designed in its original institution. It must have 
been designed as something preparatory to the 
latter. The type as well as the antitype must have 
been preordained, and they must have been pre- 
ordained as constituent parts of the same general 
scheme of Divine Providence. It is this 'previous 
design, and this preordained connexion, which 
constitute the relation of type and antitype V 

Whether the Holy Spirit has seen fit invariably 
to specify the intended type, or has not rather 
indicated only certain elements of a more extended 
system, leaving its ramifications to be developed by 
the prayerful researches of the Biblical student, may 
justly form subject of controversy. Nevertheless, 



4 Typology, vol. i. p. 46. Marsh's Lectures, p. 371. 



CH. VIII.] THE TYPE OF ANTICHRIST. 429 

whatever doubt may exist as to the theory of the 
inferred type, or as to the suggestion I have offered 
regarding the involved type, none can be enter- 
tained in respect to the innate type, that having the 
seal of genuineness affixed to it by Christ or his 
Apostles. If, therefore, the Type of Antichrist can 
be proved to belong to the class of innate types, the 
inquiry into the validity of inferred and of involved 
types becomes superfluous. Does, then, the type in 
question meet the requirements of this, the strictest 
class in the science of Scriptural typology ? From 
Rom. ix. 17 thus much maybe implied, the Pharaoh 
of the Exode being there exhibited as the type of 
judicially hardened infidelity. But the question is 
met more directly by the facts brought forward in 
the foregoing pages, the name of the Egyptian 
monarch being discovered written in cipher in the 
very heart of the typology of the Apocalypse. 

This result enables us to combat certain ob- 
jections which might have seemed fatal to a type of 
merely an inferred character. It has been laid 
down as a typological canon, that nothing is to be 
regarded in the light of a type, which is of an 
improper or sinful nature ; and " the ground of this 
rule," it is urged, " lies in the connexion which the 
type has with the antitype, and, consequently, with 
God. The antitype being of God's appointment, 
and of the things which belong to his everlasting 
kingdom, the type which was intended to fore- 
shadow, and prepare the way for it, must also have 



430 THE TYPE OE ANTICHRIST. [PART II. 

been of his appointment : and, whether a symbol 
in religion, or fact in providence, must have been 
of the things which He at least sanctioned and 
approved. A preordained connexion, such as, of 
necessity, existed between the earlier and the later 
dispensations, could not imply less than this. And 
that being the case, nothing, of course, admitted 
into religion, or permitted to have a place in 
providence, contrary to the mind and will of God, 
could by possibility be endowed with a typical 
character." "As amid the transactions of Gospel 
history, where the antitype comes into play, we 
exclude all that properly belonged to man's igno- 
rance or sinfulness, so amid the transactions of Old 
Testament history, where the materials of type are 
to be found, we must in like manner exclude all 
that had its source in the polluted fountain-head of 
human depravity 5 ." 

Now the Pharaoh of the Exode was unques- 
tionably an awful instance of the ignorance, sinful- 
ness, and depravity of man : and further, be it 
remarked, the sin of Pharaoh was not only permitted 
sin, but in the end judicial sin. According to the 
foregoing rule, this wilful king would be excluded 
from the class of those persons who, under the elder 
dispensation, are employed in Scriptural typology ; 
and we are driven to this conclusion, — either the 
rule forbids the recognition of the type, or the type 
sets aside the rule. And had that type been merely 
5 Typology of Scripture, vol. i. pp. 97 — 99. 



CH. VIII.] THE TYPE OF ANTICHRIST. 



431 



an inferred, or even an implied type, the rule might 
have been deemed of sufficient weight to warrant 
its exclusion. But with an innate type, or a type 
determined to be such by the authority of Scripture, 
this cannot be the case ; the alternative must be 
accepted, and the human rule succumb to the 
Divine Word. 

And, indeed, in a subsequent passage to that 
quoted above, Mr. Fairbairn admits that this rule 
has been overstrained by typologists. "It is pos- 
sible," he says, " to exercise an undue and excessive 
caution in the application of this principle of inter- 
pretation." " As all the manifestations of truth 
have their corresponding and antagonist manifes- 
tations of error, it is perfectly warrantable and just 
to regard the form of evil, which in certain cases 
stood counter to the type, as itself the type of some- 
thing similar, which should afterwards arise as a 
counterform of evil to the antitype G . As one in- 
strument or action of holy principle may represent 
and foreshadow another, so one instrument or action 
of sin may, in particular situations, represent and 
foreshadow another." " The various forms and 
manifestations of evil with which the Church of 
God had to contend, though in itself the offspring 
of wicked and forbidden malice, was yet allowed by 
God, and directed by Him, into the particular form 

6 The reader will not fail to observe, that in this admission 
the class of types h/ implication is recognized, although not by 
name. 



432 



THE TYPE OF ANTICHRIST. [PART II. 



it assumed, with a view, not merely to the trial of 
the Church then being, but also to the instruction 
and warning of the Church in future times, regard- 
ing similar trials yet to come 7 ." But for this im- 
portant exception to the rule, the innate type before 
us must have set it aside. It is the latter quali- 
fication only which preserves it from rejection. 

The conclusion at which we have arrived justifies 
the selection of the term " Type," as viewed under 
another aspect. I have already stated that Chris- 
tianity, like Paganism, has its mythology, Christian 
mythology being a fiction symbolizing a truth; 
Pagan mythology, a fiction symbolizing a falsehood ; 
and I have observed, that under this form are por- 
trayed in the Apocalyptic page the verities and 
destinies of the Church of Christ. 

Between allegory and type, however, the follow- 
ing distinction has been drawn 8 : — " An allegory 
is a fictitious narrative; a type is something real. 
An allegory is a picture of the imagination ; a type 
is an historical fact 9 .'''' Now the Apocalypse, con- 
sisting, as I have said, of figurative representations 
of vast realities, Christian hieroglyphics indicating 
with parabolic significance momentous verities, it 
may be argued, if a type be an historical fact 
mystically employed to foreshadow another fact, an 

7 P. 104. 8 Fairbairn, vol. i. p. 4. 

9 The expression used by St. Paul, Gal. iv. 24, in which he 
treats the history of Hagar and Sarah as an allegory, forms, to 
say the least of it, an important exception to this rule. 



CH. VIII.] THE TYPE OF ANTICHEIST. 433 

allegory, a fiction invented for a similar purpose, 
how can the term " type " be applicable, when 
treating of a portion of Scripture confessedly of an 
allegorical character ? I reply, that the very defi- 
nition of a type, as opposed to an allegory, autho- 
rizes the application of the term ; for a type is an 
historical fact, employed by the Holy Spirit to pre- 
figure an analogous historical fact. And however 
singular the circumstance that history and allegory 
should be found thus linked together, in fore- 
shadowing Christian and Antichristian verities, — 
and, in proof that they are so linked, we need only 
call to mind that the same beast which is typically 
described by name, is allegorically designated by 
combination of limbs and heads and horns, — the 
fact of the monarch of the Exode being an historical 
personage fully vindicates the use of the expression 
" the Type of Antichrist." 

The result obtained by subjecting the mystic 
number to typical treatment, enables us to meet 
some disparaging remarks which a learned chro- 
nologist has been pleased to make upon that vast 
array of commentators, whose aim in their treat- 
ment of the passage has been to elicit, in answer to 
the sacred enigma, the number of the name of a 
man. In his Warburtonian Lectures Mr. Nolan 
has the following: — "It cannot be dissembled an 
opinion has prevailed, from the earliest age of the 
Christian Church, that of the two numbers, elicited 
from the Apocalypse, the former (viz. 666) merely 

f f 



434 THE TYPE OF ANTICHRIST. [PART II. 

conveys, in a cabalistic or anagrammatical device, 
the name or title of the profane power; of which, 
it is generally agreed, the latter (viz. 1260) deter- 
mines the duration. By this subtle trifling, into 
the nature of which it would be beside my present 
purpose to enter, the attempt has been made to 
identify several names, the letters of which have a 
numerical force, amounting to the number, 666, 
defined by the Prophet. 

" On taking a closer view of the text, with 
reference to the context, this notion will not appear 
deserving of much attention. 'Here is wisdom/ 
observes the Evangelist ; 1 let him that hath 
understanding count the number of the beast : for 
it is the number of a man ; and his number is six 
hundred three score and six.' It is difficult to 
conceive that the Apostle, in declaring that wisdom 
was required to interpret his meaning, should leave 
it to be deciphered by a puerility, which was alike 
unauthorized by the practice, and unsuitable to the 
gravity, of an inspired writer 10 ." 

Such a remark from such a pen cannot but ex- 
cite surprise. The very expression employed by St. 
John in verse 2 of chapter xv., "they that had 
gotten the victory .... over the number of his 
name" goes far to invalidate the concluding obser- 
vation; and the very early conjee tare, recorded by 
Irenseus, that Aaruvog might be the word, although 



P. 279. 



CH. VIII.] THE TYPE OF ANTICHRIST. 



435 



it does not establish the correctness of this primi- 
tive solution of the divine mystery, appears to favour 
the principle of such a mode of interpretation. 

It will be admitted, moreover, that the proba- 
bilities in favour of such a treatment of the mystic 
number are considerably increased by the discovery 
of its latent allusion to the name of that most 
daring rebel against Omnipotence, the Pharaoh of 
the Exode, whose parallel in audacity has never 
hitherto been met with in the annals of the world. 
And it will be further conceded, that the deep 
significancy unveiled by this treatment of the 
enigma derives an additional sanction from the fact, 
that the response thus elicited is drawn from the 
depths of the Word of God. 

In making these remarks, however, it is not my 
wish to attempt establishing the position that an 
echo to the mystic number cannot be found in the 
system of sacred prophetic chronology, as well as in 
that of ancient history and mythology. On the 
contrary, it is possible, nay probable, that the sacred 
mystery may have its ramifications in a variety of 
directions, of which we in the present day do not 
so much as dream. In confining my researches 
more especially to the discovery of " the type of 
Antichrist," I do not believe that the mystic office 
of the sacred number has been fully ascertained. 
On the contrary, I am disposed to think, that while 
it reflects back upon the type, it progresses also to 
the delineation of the Antitype ; and may embrace 

f f 2 



436 



THE TYPE OF ANTICHRIST. [PART IT. 



likewise a period connected with his final develop- 
ment K 

On the supposition, however, that the mystic 
number is capable of typical treatment only, how 
vast the insight it affords into the character and 
overthrow of Antichrist ! Were it to appear that 
the number 666 had been by the Holy Spirit made 
subservient to the mystic exhibition of the type 
alone, we could not but confess how fully adequate 
are the means employed to the end in view; how 
deep the significancy of the symbol, when any fitting 
instrument had been applied to its interpretation. 
We could hardly fail to be impressed with the con- 
viction that it had performed an important office 
in the mysteries of Scripture, by evoking the 
monarch of the Exode from his unhallowed grave, 
and compelling him to bear testimony to the cha- 
racteristics of one, who should occupy an analogous 
position in the future history of the Church of God. 
Should the mission assigned it even cease here, and 
Antichrist himself bear no designation to mark his 
connexion with the mystic number, nevertheless, 
from the picture thus presented, the terrible reality 

1 Among the various solutions offered by the learned, the 
celebrated one of Mr. Clarke, H Xarivrj puaiXem, the Latin 
Empire, will be deemed by those who are inclined to assent to 
the positions advanced in the present volume singularly appro- 
priate. The connexion between the term BaaiXeiu (Basileia) 
and BamXiffKoe " the Basilisk" or royal serpent of Egypt, will 
not escape observation. 



CH. VIII.] THE TYPE OF ANTICHRIST. 



437 



might be discerned ; and prophecy might have sup- 
plied adequate criteria by which to distinguish that 
awful personage, in whose signal overthrow the 
trials and sorrows of the Church militant will 
receive their triumphant termination. If the mystic 
cipher establish the fact only that the Pharaoh who 
opposed Moses is the type of him who is termed 
emphatically the Antichrist, it performs in the 
Sacred Volume a function, the importance of which 
can scarcely be over-estimated. 

Every student of Prophecy must be more or less 
aware of the difficulty of what may be termed the 
collocation of prophecy ; i. e. the difficulty of gather- 
ing from their scattered localities the various mem- 
bers of the prophetic body, and so fitting them 
together as to constitute a perfect whole, after the 
manner in which, at the word of Ezekiel, the " dry 
bones," scattered through the valley, came "bone 
to his bone," and, instinct with life, " stood up upon 
their feet, an exceeding great army." How scat- 
tered throughout the prophetic pages are passages, 
which speak of an Exodus later than, and analogous 
to, that which took place at the Red Sea. See 
Isa. xi. 11. 16; xliii. 16—19; li. 9—11. Jer. 
xvi. 14, 15; xxiii. 7, 8. Ezek. xx. 34, &c. Hosea 
ii. 14, 15. Micah vii. 14, 15. Zech. x. 10, &c. 
Some of these I shall place before the reader, 
leaving the others to be referred to at pleasure. 
Turn we first to that very remarkable passage in 



438 THE TYPE OF ANTICHRIST. [PART II. 

the 51st chapter of Isaiah. " Awake, awake, put 
on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake, as in 
the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art 
thou not it that hath cut Kahab, and wounded the 
dragon? Art thou not it which hath dried the 
sea, the waters of the great deep ; that hath made 
the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to 
pass over ? Therefore the redeemed of the Lord 
shall return, and come with singing unto Zion ; 
and everlasting joy shall he upon their head : they 
shall obtain gladness and joy ; and sorrow and 
mourning shall flee away." " Rahab" say the com- 
mentators, " is Egypt" but it is Egypt under its 
most obnoxious, most malignant aspect;- — Egypt 
designated by a name under which it stood up to 
defy the armies of the Living God. It is the Ra- 
oub — the Solar Serpent — in dread antagonism to 
him, who was the mediator of the Old Testament, 
the pre-eminent type of " God manifest in the 
flesh." 

Next. It will be remembered, that in our obser- 
vations on the commencement of the 15th chap- 
ter of the Kevelation, we remarked that kdvwv 
appeared a preferable reading to ayuuv, not only 
as supported by the authority of ancient manu- 
scripts, but because the victory of Moses over Pha- 
raoh was a type and pledge of the complete victory 
of Christ over the opposition of a heathen world. 
The same idea is observable in the passage before 



CH. VIII.] THE TYPE OF ANTICHRIST. 



439 



us. The prophet argues of the future from the 
past, inferring a destruction yet to be wrought, 
from what had already been accomplished 2 . 

Again. It will not be forgotten, that in examining 
the construction of the word Zephon, we observed 
that it represented the serpent in the midst of 
Zion. The conjecture is sanctioned, not only by 
the mention of the Holy City immediately after the 
enunciation of the number of the beast, where the 
Lamb is exhibited, in opposition to the Solar Ser- 
pent, as standing a on the Mount Sion, with an 
hundred forty and four thousand, having his 
Father's name written in their foreheads," but 
by the very structure of the prophecy before us. 
Because Rahab — the Solar Serpent — is cut, and 
the dragon wounded, " therefore the redeemed of 
the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto 
Zion; .... and sorrow and mourning shall flee 
away 3 ." 

In Ezek. xx. 33 we read, " As I live, saith the 
Lord God, surely with a mighty hand, and with a 
stretched out arm, and with fury poured out, will 
I rule over you : and I will bring you out from the 
people, and will gather you out of the countries 
wherein ye are scattered, with a mighty hand, and 
with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured 

2 The connexion between Rahdb and the dragon in Isaiah, 
and between the Beast and the dragon in the Apocalypse, will 
not be lost sight of. 

3 Isa. xxvi. 20, 21 ; xxvii. 1—13. 



440 THE TYPE OF ANTICHRIST. [PART II. 

out. And I will bring you into the wilderness of 
the people, and there will I plead with you face to 
face. Like as I pleaded with your fathers in the 
wilderness of the land of Egypt, so will I plead 
with you, saith the Lord God," &c. Again, in 
Hosea ii. 14, 15, " Therefore, behold, I will allure 
her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak 
comfortably to her. And I will give her her vine- 
yards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a 
door of hope ; and she shall sing there, as in the 
days of her youth, and as in the day when she came 
up out of the land of Egypt." Again, in Micah 
vii. 14, 15, "Feed thy people with thy rod, the 
flock of thine heritage, which dwell solitarily in 
the wood, in the midst of Carmel : let them feed in 
Bash an and Gilead, as in the days of old. Accord- 
ing to the days of thy coming out of the land of 
Egypt will I show unto him marvellous things." 
And in Zechariah x. 10 — 12, "I will bring them 
again also out of the land of Egypt, and gather 
them out of Assyria; and I will bring them into 
the land of Gilead and Lebanon; and place shall 
not be found for them. And he shall pass through 
the sea with affliction, and shall smite the waves in 
the sea, and all the deeps of the river shall dry up : 
and the pride of Assyria shall be brought down, 
and the sceptre of Egypt shall depart away. And 
I will strengthen them in the Lord; and they shall 
walk up and down in his name, saith the Lord 4 ." 
4 See the whole chapter. 



CH. VIII.] THE TYPE OF ANTICHRIST. 441 

It may be urged that these Prophecies received 
their fulfilment when the great body of the Jewish 
people having on account of unbelief been rejected, 
salvation was offered to the Gentiles, and these last 
passing through the baptismal waters, of which 
those of the Red Sea were a type and shadow, 
escaped from the bondage of Satan, "into the 
glorious liberty of the children of God." True it 
is, when Christ our Passover had been sacrificed 
the spiritual Exodus began. He died and rose 
again, according to the Scriptures, and his fol- 
lowers, baptized into his death, and risen again to 
newness of life, look to be partakers of his glorious 
resurrection. But this spiritual accomplishment 
does not exhaust the scope of these prophecies ; for, 
after the Jews had been broken off from the parent 
stock, and the Gentiles being graffed in had become 
the children of promise, and partakers of "the 
root and fatness of the olive tree," St. Paul carries 
on God's gracious promises of mercy, and associates 
them with the future return of his now rejected 
people. " I would not, brethren," says the Apostle, 
" that ye should be ignorant of this mystery," " that 
blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the 
fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all 
Israel shall be saved : as it is written, There shall 
come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn 
away ungodliness from Jacob V 



5 Bom. xi. 25, 26. 



442 



THE TYPE OF ANTICHRIST. [PART II. 



Prophecy then, as applied by the great Apostle 
of the Gentiles, warrants us in anticipating the 
restoration of God's ancient people to his favour, 
and their admission to privileges, of which those 
heretofore possessed by them were but a type 
and shadow. But how do these prophecies, in- 
volving a future Exodus, deepen in intensity, when 
we discover that St. John, in his vision of things 
which shall come to pass hereafter, while sur- 
veying "the shifting scenes and successive cha- 
racters" in the sacred drama of the Apocalypse, 
beholds, shrouded in a veil of the deepest mys- 
tery, the daring oppressor of God's chosen people, 
Pharaoh Amenoph. A future Exodus, and a future 
Pharaoh are correlatives, and immediately induce 
the inquiry, whether the portion of Scripture we 
are investigating be not connected with the final 
restoration of the Jewish people. An intimation 
to this effect may possibly be designed in that pas- 
sage of the Prophet Isaiah, a portion of which is 
quoted by St. Paul 6 to show that the natural 
branches shall yet " be graffed into their own olive 
tree." Pointing to some terrific outburst of ungod- 
liness yet to be exhibited in the world, he says, 
" When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the 
Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against 
him. And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and 
unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob 7 ." 

6 Eom. xi. 26. 1 Isa. lix. 19, 20. 



CH. VIII.] THE TYPE OF ANTICHRIST. 443 

It has been observed, that " The Book of the 
Apocalypse may be considered as a Prophet con- 
tinued in the Church of God, uttering predictions 
relative to all times, which have their successive 
fulfilment as ages roll on; and thus it stands in 
the Christian Church in the place of the succes- 
sion of prophets in the Jewish Church; and by 
this especial economy prophecy is still continued, 
is always speaking ; and yet a succession of pro- 
phets rendered unnecessary V Viewing the Apo- 
calypse as the close of the prophetic canon, and as 
also the instrument employed by Him " who knoweth 
the end from the beginning," to shadow forth the 
most prominent features of the history of Christ's 
Church, from its first outgoings at Jerusalem to 
the time when it shall attain to the fruition of 
eternal glory, may we not regard its mystic pages 
as presenting a succession of imagery, around the 
consecutive parts of which the unfulfilled predic- 
tions of the elder Prophets might be made to cluster, 
as satellites round the planets of the solar system ? 
And do not these apparently isolated fragments 
thus admit of grouping and arrangement beyond 
what has hitherto been attempted ? The Babylon 
of the Apocalypse has attracted within her sphere 
a portion of the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah ; 
should not that proud monarch of Egypt, now dis- 
covered to occupy a position in the prophetic 



8 Dr. Adain Clarke's Preface to the Revelation. 



444 THE TYPE OF ANTICHRIST. [PART II. 

planisphere, draw within his orbit those scattered 
atoms of the mystic system, which presage a future 
Exodus, and connect it with the final emancipation 
and restoration of the ancient people of God ? 

The period of the effectual call of the Jews to 
the knowledge of Christ is in Holy Scripture 
spoken of as a season of deep and bitter tribulation, 
and affliction 9 . Does not the connexion which has 
been elicited between the rebel Monarch of Egypt 
and the name of the beast, associated as it is with 
that fearful period, lead us to anticipate an incar- 
nation of the dread enemy of mankind, of one who 
will exert every energy to arrest the merciful pur- 
poses of the Almighty, will grind the hearts of his 
victims by increased spiritual bondage, and exhaust 
every subtle device in striving to rivet anew their 
broken chains ? If the mission of Moses to emanci- 
pate his brethren from the bondage of ancient 
Egypt called forth such virulent antagonism on the 
part of Pharaoh prior to the former Exode, may 
we not expect that the mission of Christ to rescue 
his brethren according to the flesh from the land 
of darkness and the shadow of death, will meet 
with an analogous opposition ? As Moses of old 
encountered his judicially-hardened opponent, may 
we not infer, that in some awful and inexplicable 
manner, Christ will likewise meet, and contend 
with, and conquer Antichrist? And then shall 



Ezek. xx. 33. 



CH. VIII.] THE TYPE OF ANTICHKIST. 445 

"the days come, .... that they shall no more 
say, The Lord liveth, which brought up the chil- 
dren of Israel out of the land of Egypt ; but, The 
Lord liveth, which brought up, and which led the 
seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, 
and from all countries whither I had driven them ; 
and they shall dwell in their own land." 

Nay, might it not come to pass, that even the 
partial elucidation of these obscure prophecies, if 
urged upon the notice of the Jewish people, would 
tend to awaken their attention to the contents of 
the Book of Revelation, and lead them to search 
with newly-awakened interest the sacred pages in 
which these momentous predictions are recorded ? 
Believing, as they do, that the song of deliverance 
composed by Moses, after the overthrow of Pharaoh 
at the Red Sea, contains in it "the times of the 
Messiah','' might they not be persuaded to look 
more favourably upon the Apocalypse, when it is 
found, that while enlisting that majestic ode into its 
symbolic system, it also reveals, however latently 
yet unmistakably, the very name of the monarch 
who had but then been overtaken with " swdft 
destruction," and employs him as the type of one 
who shall hereafter enact an analogous part under 
the Gospel Dispensation ? And a proportion, a 
harmony, a parallelism, becoming thus apparent 
between their sacred books and ours, might they 



1 See Gill's Commentary, Eev. xv. 3. 



446 THE TYPE OF ANTICHRIST. [PART II. 

not, while meditating with deep veneration on the 
prophetic song of Moses, be induced to recognize 
in the Revelation the Divine Antiphon of the 
Lamb? 

Again. How many calling themselves Chris- 
tians, while professing to receive the New Testa- 
ment as a revelation from God, reject the Old ! 
Yet, in the portion of Scripture before us, how 
distinctly does New Testament prophecy link itself 
with Old Testament history! What significance 
do the announcements of the one derive from the 
records of the other ! What a delicate reticulation 
pervades the two ; the very roots and fibres of the 
one intertwining themselves amid the foundation 
stones of the other ! Thus, in the particular in- 
stance we are contemplating, the inspired character 
of the Song of the Lamb being conceded, a divine 
sanction is thereby given to that of Moses; and 
not only so, but the reference now detected in 
this prophecy of the New Covenant to that mo- 
mentous event which called forth the triumphant 
ode of the Jewish Lawgiver, reveals so intimate a 
connexion between the two, that the inspiration of 
both must stand or fall together. 

And if such considerations carry conviction neither 
to the Jew, who, cleaving to the Old Testament, 
ignores the New, nor to the semi-sceptic, who, ac- 
knowledging the New, distrusts the Old, yet surely 
we, who receive both as the revelation of Him 
" with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of 



CH. VIII.] THE TYPE OF ANTICHRIST. 447 

turning," may well hail any accession of light, 
albeit shining "in a dark place." For a beacon 
kindled upon any of what we must still term the 
dark mountains of prophecy, is not only a point 
gained so far as the individual prediction is con- 
cerned, but its ignition on any one of those lofty 
peaks can scarcely fail to cast some faint rays on 
far distant summits, and render visible outlines 
hitherto wrapped in deepest obscurity. And if, as 
has been conjectured, the prophecy under con- 
sideration be the culminating point of the whole 
range of the prophetic structure, the appearance 
as of fire upon its apex cannot but serve to disperse 
the shadows yet hanging over the lower hills. 

The subject of this investigation is not only of 
absorbing interest, but one in which probably even 
personal safety may be involved. For when the 
seven angels having the seven last plagues in which 
" is filled up the wrath of God," were exhibited to 
the rapt vision of the prophet, they " that had 
gotten the victory over the beast, and over his 
image, and over his mark, and over the number of 
his name, stand on (at) the sea of glass, having the 
harps of God." How vast the importance of that 
victory, where its consequence is immunity from 
those judgments which must come upon the earth ! 

With a few remarks upon the subtle contexture 
of the mystic symbolism before us, I will bring this 
chapter to a close. In the description of the pour- 
ing out of the seven vials, the typical delineation 



448 THE TYPE OF ANTICHRIST. [PART II. 

reverts probably to an earlier period of Egyptian 
history, representing the faithful harpers in a posi- 
tion analogous to that of the Israelites when God 
put forth his power to humble the pride of Pharaoh 
preparatory to his final overthrow. The plagues of 
Egypt were ten in number, of which the three first 
fell alike on Israelite and Egyptian. But under 
the infliction of the seven last, this was not the 
case. God severed in that day the land of Goshen, 
and put a division between his own people and the 
people of Pharaoh, so that while his final judgments 
fell upon the rebellious monarch and his subjects, 
the Israelites remained unscathed by the terrible 
calamities which surrounded them. To this event 
the seven last plagues of the Apocalypse manifestly 
refer. The allusion is evidenced by the fact that 
whereas, after the infliction of the seven last 
plagues of Egypt, Pharaoh and his host perished in 
the Red Sea, so, after the pouring out of the seven 
vials, the beast and the false prophet are cast into 
the lake of fire. 



CII. IX.] THE SPIRITUAL EXODUS, &C. 



449 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE SPIRITUAL EXODUS, THE WILDERNESS OF LIFE, 
THE REST THAT REMAINETH. 

The design of the present volume being, as already 
stated, rather to interpret a portion of Apocalyptic 
symbolism than to attempt the evolution of those 
momentous features of the Church's history in 
which their probable antitype is to be found, the 
object which I had in view is, so far as my limits 
permit, brought to a close. 

I will, however, pause to consider one or two 
obscure questions which seem capable of deriving 
elucidation from the facts and arguments I have 
endeavoured to lay before the reader ; and I do so 
the more readily in the hope that they may, in 
some degree, contribute to stimulate that high 
tone of Christian faith and practice, in the enforce- 
ment of which I may well desire that my labours 
should conclude. 

First. Baptism was no new institution at the 
advent of our Saviour, but had existed as a re- 
ligious rite among the Jews many ages previous to 
his coming in the flesh. Christ did but graft it 

G g 



450 



THE SPIRITUAL EXODUS, &C. [FART II. 



into his new Dispensation, as being admirably 
fitted by prescription and association, for a sign 
and pledge of admission into the privileges and 
responsibilities of the Christian covenant. "He 
took it into his hands and into Evangelical use as 
He found it, this only added, that He might pro- 
mote it to a worthier end, and larger use V 

Its chief office in the elder Dispensation had 
been in the admission of the converted Gentile to 
the privileges of Judaism. Baptism was, as Light- 
foot observes, " inseparably joined to the circumci- 
sion of proselytes 2 . There was, indeed, some little 
distance of time between the two rites .... but 
certainly Baptism ever followed*" 

But although the existence of Baptism prior to 
our Saviour's day is universally acknowledged, the 
origin of the rite is involved in great obscurity. 
To my mind, however, it will scarcely admit of a 
doubt, but is plainly referrible to the passage of 
the Red Sea. Of the Israelitish host which passed 
through those miraculously arrested waters, St. 

1 Lightfoot, xi. 58. 

2 "Whenever any heathen will betake himself and be 
joined to the covenant of Israel, and place himself under the 
wings of the Divine Majesty, and take the yoke of the law upon 
him, circumcision, baptism, and oblation are required" (Mai- 
monides, Issure Biah, c. 13), Lightfoot, iv. 408. 

"That was a common axiom, no man is a proselyte, until he 
be circumcised and baptized." (Jevamoth, fol. 46), xi. 55. 
See also vol. iv. p. 245. 

3 Lightfoot, xi. 57. 



CH. IX.] THE SPIRITUAL EXODUS, &C. 451 



Paul says, " they were all baptized unto Moses in 
the cloud and in the sea." What then was the 
rite of Baptism as applied to those who abjured 
Paganism and professed themselves converts to the 
Jewish law, but a sign and symbol that the Gentile 
then and there quitted the service of sin and Satan 
— of which to the Jew Egypt was the type and 
shadow, — and abjuring idols and their arch -proto- 
type the Devil, followed Moses through the waters 
of separation, as the Israelites of a former genera- 
tion had done ; that as by circumcision he put on 
Abraham, so by immersion he put on Moses ? In a 
word, Baptism was to him the mystical passage of 
the Red Sea. 

Whereas then the learned interpreter of the 
Jewish law, Maimonides, says, " Circumcision was in 
Egypt, as it is said, c None uncircumcised shall eat 
thereof,' i. e. of the Passover .... Baptism was 
in the wilderness, before the giving of the law, as 
it is said, ' And thou shalt sanctify them to-day and 
to-morrow, and let them wash their garments ; ' " 
we would rather say, taking the citation from St. 
Paul as our authority, Circumcision was in Egypt, 
as it is said, " None uncircumcised shall eat the 
Passover;" Baptism was in the wilderness, before 
the giving of the law, as it is said, " All our fathers 
were under the cloud, and all passed through the 
sea, and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud 
and in the sea 4 ." 

4 In venturing to impugn the position of Maimonides, I 
Gg 2 



452 



THE SPIRITUAL EXODUS, &C. [PART II. 



If this position be correct, the adoption by our 
blessed Lord of the then existing rite of Baptism, 
as a fitting symbol of admission into his Church, is 
at once explained. Moses being the pre-eminent 
type of Christ, and the passage of the Red Sea a type 
of that far greater deliverance which Christ wrought 
for us by his blood, through the grave and gate of 
death, our blessed Lord accepted and sanctified as 
an Evangelical Sacrament to the mystical washing 
away of sin a time-honoured rite, which had for 
ages been received among the Jews as the index of 
a fainter but analogous reality. 

Secondly. Connected with this subject is a 
custom more or less observed in the Church of 
England of turning to the east whilst reciting the 
Apostles' Creed ; a custom which has in some 
measure fallen into disuse, yet still lingers on 
among us, obtaining less as a rule than a habit to 
which many adhere, although the train of thought 
in which it originated would appear to have passed 
away. 

Whence is this observance derived ? 

would observe that technically speaking washing the garments 
was not baptism, and that the command in Exod. xix. 10. 14, 
does not extend, as in Lev. xv. 5 and xvii. 15, to the ablution 
of the body. In confirmation of which I would refer to the 
extract furnished by Lightfoot from the Babylonian Talmud in 
Jevamoth, where it is distinctly stated that baptism for pro- 
selytism and baptism or washing for uncleanness (under which 
last the washing of garments would, if viewed as a baptism, be 
classed) were totally distinct. Lightfoot, xi. 54. 



CH. IX.] THE SPIRITUAL EXODUS, &C. 453 

It was customary in the early ages of the Church 
for those persons who were about to be baptized to 
turn to the west and renounce Satan, using some 
expressive gesture, such as stretching out their 
hands against him, or spitting at him, as if he 
were present. Then turning their backs upon 
him, they faced the east, and in confession of their 
newly adopted faith recited the Apostles' Creed 5 . 
Not that this particular creed was invariably em- 
ployed, for the profession of faith was made, in 
the form of words commonly used in the locality 
where the conversion took place 6 , but in the 
Western Church the Apostles' Creed was that 
generally made use of on occasion of this solemnity. 

In this custom originated probably the practice 
of turning to the east ever after at the recital of 
the Apostles' Creed: and in those days when 
adult baptism was of such frequent occurrence a 
most significant practice it must have been. How 
powerful a remembrancer this change of position 
to those who had first assumed it when they turned 
to Christ! How calculated to bring to their re- 
collection that at baptism they had renounced 
Satan, and embraced the religion of the cross, or, 
to quote the words of St. Paul, that they had 
" turned from idols to serve the living God !" 

For the origin of this custom of turning to the 

5 See Bingham, vol. iii. pp. 535-6. 542. 547 ; vol. iv. 348. 

6 Ibid. vol. iii. pp. 369. 545. 



454 



THE SPIRITUAL EXODUS, &C. [PART II. 



east in baptism various reasons have been assigned. 
I am, however, inclined to think that none of these 
supply an adequate solution to the question at issue. 
I feel there is a deep and most significant sym- 
bolism involved in this ancient usage, and one 
which, so far as I know, has hitherto escaped ob- 
servation. We have seen reason to conclude that 
the Exodus of the children of Israel under Moses 
was not only a type of Christian Baptism, but the 
significant event in which it had its origin. Now 
Egypt was, as we have seen, the peculiar possession 
of Satan, the seat of his dominion, the stronghold 
of his power. Here Idolatry had reached her most 
daring height; here the Serpent of Paradise was 
worshipped as the beneficent creator, the author, 
not of evil, but of good to the human race. Satan 
himself was hailed as the supreme god of Egypt : 
her monarch was the dread representative of the 
arch-fiend, her chief idol an image of the prince of 
darkness transformed into an angel of light 7 . 
Now it must be borne in mind that the passage of 
Israel from Egypt through the sea to the wilder- 
ness of Arabia lay due west and east. Westward 
stood Pharaoh, the type of Satan ; eastward Moses, 
the type of Christ. " Then the Lord caused the 
sea to go back by a strong east wind." Israel ab- 

7 We read in the Apocrypha that when, by the advice 
of the angel, Tobit had driven away the devil, the evil spirit 
fled to the uttermost parts of Egyptj and that there the angel 
bound him as in his fitting abode. Tobit viii. 3. 



CH. IX.] THE SPIRITUAL EXODUS, &C. 455 

jured Pharaoh, and followed Moses, passing in 
safety through the severed waters, "which the 
Egyptians assaying to do were drowned." And 
this was a type of Christian Baptism. Well then 
might each convert to Christianity turn from the 
west on renouncing Satan, and from the west 
to the east on professing the faith of Christ cruci- 
fied. And ever after, when reciting that symbol 
in which he had made public profession of his 
faith, well might he resume the attitude first 
religiously adopted at his baptism, at once — a re- 
minder of the responsibility then incurred, — a token 
that he held fast the form of sound words to which 
he had then declared his assent, — and & pledge that 
as he had voluntarily taken upon him the yoke of 
Christ, so was he stedfastly purposed to continue 
Christ's faithful soldier and servant unto his life's 
end. 

Although frequently too much overlooked, not 
only are the analogies between the Mosaic and 
Christian Exode of the most striking character, 
but they rest upon the authority of an inspired 
Apostle 8 . Commencing with the typical and anti- 
typical passover, and passing on to the natural 
and spiritual Exodus, Moses, the divinely com- 
missioned leader of the Israelites, finds his anti- 
type in the great Captain of our salvation, Jesus 
Christ; Pharaoh, the bold opponent of the Hebrew 
8 1 Cor. x. 1—6. 



456 THE SPIRITUAL EXODUS, &C. [PART II. 

lawgiver, his counterpart in the spirit and person 
of Satan and Antichrist ; Egypt, that land of bitter 
servitude to the Israelites until the deliverance by 
Moses, finds its response in that bondage in which 
the whole human race was held by the great enemy 
of souls until the coming of Christ; the descent of 
Moses, as he led his followers through the Red 
Sea, answers to the descent of Christ into the 
grave ; the emerging of the former from the divided 
waters, to the rising of the latter — the first-fruits 
from the dead — to " the glory which he had with 
the Father before the world was ;" while the fear- 
ful end of the Egyptian monarch finds its cor- 
relative in the destruction of "him that had the 
power of death, that is, the devil." 

Nor does the parallel end here. The pilgrim- 
age of the Israelites in the desert of Sinai re- 
sponds to the journey of the Christian through 
the wilderness oe liee ; the trials, the tempta- 
tions, the backslidings of the one, to the difficulties, 
the allurements, the transgressions of the other. 
Each must be regarded as the scene of a course of 
wandering with a goal in view, not attainable by 
unassisted human strength. Once, and once only, 
has the wilderness of Sinai, " that land of deserts 
and of pits," " of drought and of the shadow of 
death," been trodden for successive years by count- 
less multitudes; never could it have been so trod- 
den but for water from the rock and manna from 



CH. IX.] THE SPIRITUAL EXODUS, &C. 457 

heaven. Nor can it again be thus peopled, save 
through a similarly miraculous interposition. Even 
thus are the wanderers in the wilderness oe life 
incapable of attaining the rest that remaineth, 
unless God vouchsafe to supply the bread of life 
and cup of salvation. 

Again. Had the Almighty not been pleased to 
accept the mediation of their leader, how often 
must the children of Israel as a nation have been 
swept from the face of the earth ! " Let me alone," 
said God, " that I may destroy them, and blot out 
their name from under heaven : and I will make of 
thee a nation mightier and greater than they." It 
was at the intercession of Moses that " the Lord 
repented of the evil which he thought to do unto 
his people," and that they were retained in the 
privileges to which they had been admitted. This 
mediatorial office of the Israeli tish lawgiver is gra- 
phically set forth in the history of the conflict 
between Israel and Amalek. "It came to pass 
when Moses held up his hand Israel prevailed : and 
when he let down his hand Amalek prevailed." 
How typical of that "one Mediator between God 
and man, the man Christ Jesus;" "able to save 
them to the uttermost that come to God by him, 
seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for 
them." 

The analogy, however, is not restricted to the 
respective pilgrimages of the ancient and present 



458 THE SPIRITUAL EXODUS, &C. [PART II. 

people of God. It is carried on to brighter scenes 
than these. The passage through Jordan fore- 
shadows the resurrection of the body; Canaan, 
open to Israelitish stedfastness, corresponds to that 
rest which awaiteth Christian perseverance; and 
the holy hill of Sion finds its antitype in the Jeru- 
salem which is above. 

In contemplating the spiritual Exodus, we 
look first to Him who, passing " through the val- 
ley of the shadow of death," " was declared to be 
the Son of God with power, according to the spirit 
of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead." 

Our blessed Lord submitted, in the day of his 
humiliation, to a twofold baptism, a baptism of 
water and a baptism of blood. By the one He 
entered upon, by the other He closed, his sacred 
ministry. 

It is obvious that Christ's baptism in Jordan 
must be viewed under a totally different aspect 
from that of all others who came to John. The 
baptism of repentance for the remission of sin was 
in our Saviour's case wholly inapplicable, for where 
sin had no existence repentance was simply impos- 
sible. This being evident, may we not suppose 
that as by circumcision Christ had been made a 
child of Abraham, so by this significant rite He 
openly professed Himself a follower of Moses, and 
thus voluntarily and advisedly on entering upon 
his ministry declared his adhesion to that law, to 



CH. IX.] THE SPIRITUAL EXODUS, &C. 459 

the observance of which He had been pledged in 
infancy ? By this solemn act He consecrated Him- 
self to his self-imposed office of keeping the law for 
man — the law moral and ceremonial — all right- 
eousness; for as "it was absolutely necessary that 
Christ should fulfil the moral law for all men, so 
was it respectively necessary that He should answer 
and accomplish the ceremonial in regard to the 
Jew V 

And in connexion with this view of Christ's 
baptism the ensuing miraculous manifestation is 
most significant. No sooner had our blessed Lord 
thus testified his subjection to the Mosaic Law, 
than forthwith a voice from Heaven proclaimed 
Him as the Holy One, who alone could satisfy its 
highest requirements. 

It is, however, his later baptism, the baptism 
of blood 10 , which opens to us as Christians the 
realities and requirements of the spiritual Exodus; 
that baptism wherein He became obedient unto 
death, even the death of the cross ; for then it was 
He passed through those dark portals of which 
the severed waters were the divinely appointed 
symbol, and made for his disciples a way that they 
should fearlessly follow his steps. Thus, as by 
his first baptism He sealed Himself to keep the 
law for man, so by the second He sealed Himself 
as the atonement for the sins of those who could 

Liglitfoot, iw. 399. 10 Luke xii. 50. Matt. xx. 22, 23. 



460 THE SPIRITUAL EXODUS, &C. [PART II. 

not keep that law for themselves. The first was 
symbolical of an Exodus which indicated Him a 
follower of the Jewish lawgiver; the second, of 
an Exodus which proclaimed Him the author of a 
covenant based on better promises, sealed by the 
shedding of his own most precious blood. 

And this view sufficiently accounts for the fact, 
that Christian Baptism was not instituted before 
Christ's death. He did, indeed, in the river 
Jordan, sanctify Baptism by his own example, and 
by the consequent descent of the Holy Spirit; but 
He did not institute it until after his resurrection. 
Not until He had passed through the grave and gate 
of death, and given proofs of his resurrection by many 
infallible signs, did He institute that mystic rite 
wherein " we are buried with him into death," " to 
be raised again in newness of life." " When thou 
hadst overcome the sharpness of death, thou didst 
open the kingdom of heaven to all believers." 

And here we shall, if I mistake not, find that 
considerable light is thrown upon the magnificent 
but obscure passage in Isaiah lxiii., " Who is this 
that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from 
Bozrah ? " &c. " In this description," says Dean 
Stanhope, " we have represented the hardships and 
success of that combat with the enemy of souls, by 
which Christ brought salvation to mankind, van- 
quishing sin and death, wresting the prey out of 
the hands of Satan, and, as the Apostle expresses 
it, c having spoiled principalities and powers/ 



CH. IX.] THE SPIRITUAL EXODUS, &C. 461 

triumphing over them in his cross." It will be 
observed, that after the Israelites had made the 
passage of the Red Sea, their route from the 
wilderness to Sion lay through Edom. But when 
Moses sent messengers to the monarch of that 
kingdom, craving permission to pass peaceably 
through his country, " Edom said unto him, thou 
shalt not pass by me, lest I come out against thee 
with the sword;" " and Edom came out against him 
with much people, and with a strong hand. Thus 
Edom refused to give Israel passage through his 
border: wherefore Israel turned away from him 1 ." 
Not so, however, the great Captain of our salvation. 
No opposing power could arrest Christ's progress 
from the gates of death to the opened portals of 
heaven. The Prophet beholds Him midway in his 
victorious course from Egypt to Sion, " coming 
from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah, glo- 
rious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of 
his strength, speaking in righteousness, mighty to 
save." "It is Christ," says Bp. Horne, "that is 
thus magnificently described, returning to his 
capital from the land of the enemy after his Pas- 
sion." 

How sublime the imagery ! Bozrah, the capital 
of that kingdom which opposed the entrance of 
Moses into Canaan, fitly represents the vehe- 
ment efforts of the powers of darkness, to impede 



1 Numb. xx. 14—21. 



462 THE SPIRITUAL EXODUS, &C. [PART II. 

the passage of Christ from the tomb to the Jeru- 
salem which is above. How vain the effort ! He 
marches direct through the capital of the country, 
treading the people with his anger, trampling 
them in his fury, their blood sprinkled upon his 
garments, staining all his raiment. How gloriously 
does He speak of Himself! "I looked, and there 
was none to help; and I wondered that there 
was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm 
brought salvation unto me ; and my fury, it upheld 
me. And I will tread down the people in mine 
anger, and make them drunk in my fury, and I 
will bring down their strength to the earth." How 
cheering, too, is his consequent message to our- 
selves ! " Fear not ; I am the first and the last : I 
am he that liveth, and was dead ; and, behold, I am 
alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of 
hell and of death V 

To return. It is, perhaps, difficult for us 
thoroughly to realize the significance and import- 
ance of Baptism as the instrument of our deliver- 
ance from the dominion of Satan, and admission 
to the privileges and responsibilities of the king- 
dom of Christ. Never would the appeal to the 
wonders of the Jewish Exodus be so impressive as 
when addressed to those who had witnessed that 
stupendous manifestation of "the goodness and 
severity of God 3 ." And, in like manner, never 



2 Eev. i. 17, 18. 



3 See Deut. xi. 2—7. 



CH. IX.] THE SPIRITUAL EXODUS, &C. 4G3 



could the marvels of the Christian Exode have 
been so emphatically present, as to those, who, 
eye-witnesses of the death and subsequent resur- 
rection of our blessed Lord, had embraced the re- 
ligion of Christ crucified, had been " buried with 
him by baptism unto death 4 ," and were " risen 
with him through the faith of the operation of 
God 5 ." But although the circumstances of that 
miraculous event may not after the lapse of ages be 
so vividly realized, yet are the privileges connected 
with it no less positive. The " little ones 6 " carried 
by their fathers out of Egypt could possess no re- 
collection of that momentous event whereby was 
effected their deliverance " from the midst of the 
furnace of iron 7 ." Yet the Israelitish infants 
formed the very portion of that vast multitude 
which attained that land of promise, of which the 
passage through the Red Sea was the antecedent. 
Indeed, but for the refusal of the fathers to go for- 
ward when commanded to take possession of the 
promised inheritance, the whole body of the people 
would have travelled almost direct from the wilder- 
ness of Sinai to the land of Canaan, and those 
who, as infants, had passed through the Red Sea, 
would, as such, have entered into that good land ; 
a fact which imparts deep significance to that 
assertion of our Church, "It is certain by God's 
word that children which are baptized, dying 

4 Eom. vi. 4. 5 Col. ii. 12. 

6 Exod. x. 10. 7 1 Kings viii. 51. 



464 THE SPIRITUAL EXODUS, &C. [PAKT II. 

before they commit actual sin, are undoubtedly 
saved 8 ." 

It is after-sin which imperils the privileges of 
Christian Baptism, as it was after-sin which 
jeopardized, nay involved the absolute forfeiture, 
to many of the Israelites of the benefits of their 
Exode from Egypt. To this portion of the subject 
we will now address ourselves. We have glanced 
at the analogy between some of the privileges 
of the Jewish and the spiritual Exodus; let us 
consider some of the requirements of each. 

First. The Israelitish fathers took no heed to that 
reiterated charge of Moses, " These words which I 
command thee this day shall be in thine heart, and 
thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children." 
They taught not their "little ones" in accordance 
with the privileges which had been sealed to them 
by the passage of the Red Sea. Having themselves 
quickly turned aside out of the way, they set up 
before their eyes the idols of Egypt. The in- 
evitable consequence ensued; the evil example of 
the parents produced its wonted baneful effect upon 
the children : and when having vainly appealed to 
the former, God turned to the latter, these also 
refused to execute his judgments, despised his 
statutes, polluted his sabbaths, and their eyes were 
after their fathers' idols 9 . 

8 Eubric at the end of the Service for the Public Baptism of 
Infants. 

9 Ezek. xx. 18—24. 



CH. IX.] THE SPIRITUAL EXODUS, &C. 465 



Alas ! how frequently in this our day are children, 
who " by baptism are regenerate, and grafted into 
the body of Christ's Church ! ," left in utter ig- 
norance of the privileges and responsibilities of 
their holy calling, and instead of being trained in 
Christian faith and obedience, permitted to grow 
up as children of Satan, living without God in the 
world. And should their spiritual privileges not 
be finally lost, how often for their revival are 
grievous visitations needed, analogous to those in- 
flicted upon the Israelites during the period of 
their wanderings. 

St. Paul strongly marks the analogy between the 
privileges and requirements attendant upon the 
respective pilgrimages in the third and fourth 
chapters of his Epistle to the Hebrews, where he 
bids us take heed lest there be in any of us " an 
evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living 
God," warning us by the example of the Israelites 
to " labour to enter into that rest, lest any man fall 
after the same example of unbelief." 

Secondly. To each individual of that vast mul- 
titude was the possession of Canaan pledged by 
God. Not one of those who had passed through 
the waters of the Ked Sea but might have entered 
the promised land. When, however, they set no 
value upon the country pledged to them by God, 
but " thought scorn of that pleasant land, and gave 

1 Service for receiving a child who has been privately bap- 
tized as "one of the flock of true Christian people." 

h h 



466 



THE SPIRITUAL EXODUS, &C. [PART II. 



no credence to his word," when " they said one to 
another, Let us make a captain, and let us return 
into Egypt, the Lord spake unto Moses and 
unto Aaron, saying, How long shall I bear with 
this evil congregation, which murmur against me ? 
Say unto them, As truly as I live, saith the Lord, 
doubtless ye shall not come into the land concern- 
ing which I sware to make you dwell therein .... 
but your little ones which ye said should be a prey, 
them will I bring in, and they shall know the land 
which ye have despised. But as for you, your 
carcases shall fail in the wilderness .... ye shall 
bear your iniquities .... and ye shall know my 
breach of promise. 11 What can more strongly in- 
dicate that God's purposes of mercy are influenced, 
arrested, nay changed, by the obedience or dis- 
obedience of man, that the fulfilment of his pro- 
mises and of his threatenings are contingent upon 
the condition of man's repentance or his per- 
severance in sin ? 

Let me here revert to that ancient custom, the 
origin of which I lately endeavoured to explain, 
that of turning to the east when reciting the 
Apostles' Creed. Had we been baptized after 
attaining the age of manhood, and as the armies of 
Israel, looking westward, cast a last glance of loath- 
ing and abhorrence upon Pharaoh ere turning to 
the east they professed themselves believers in and 
followers of Moses, so had we turned to the west in 
testimony of our rejection and detestation of Satan, 



CII. IX.] THE SPIRITUAL EXODUS, &C. 467 

ere turning eastward we professed our faith in, and 
promised obedience to Christ, how forcibly would 
the subsequent assumption of this latter position, 
when repeating the formula used at our baptism, have 
recalled to our minds the bitter spiritual thraldom 
from which we had been delivered, and the sacred 
covenant of peace into which we had been received, 
when first we thus made public profession of our 
faith. How readily then in association with our 
change of posture would the question arise ; do 
I indeed still maintain that Christian profession in- 
dicated by the attitude which I now assume ? Do 
I in very deed yet abjure Satan, and cleave to the 
living God ? Having renounced the hidden things 
of darkness, do I after the example of my Saviour 
set my "face as a flint" and follow through the 

PILGRIMAGE OF LIFE to the REST WHICH REMAINETH, 

Him who is "the way, and the truth, and the 
life?" 

That custom is indeed no longer unanimously 
adhered to as in those days when the frequent ad- 
ministration of adult baptism conferred on it such 
peculiar significance; an altered condition of cir- 
cumstances has caused it to fall into desuetude, 
and its import has more or less sunk into oblivion. 
But the obligation which it symbolized has not 
passed away; that attaches to the Church during 
the entire period of her pilgrimage. We may, if 
we will, neglect the symbol, but we dare not ignore 
the substance. It may be of little moment whether 

H h 2 



468 THE SPIRITUAL EXODUS, &C. [PART II. 

the body be turned to the east, it is the very life 
that the heart be turned stedfastly to Christ; 
that the spiritual eye be directed Zion-ward, that 
pilgrim-like, as the patriarchs of old, we seek " a 
city which hath foundations, whose builder and 
maker is God." 

O let us strive to realize this important truth 
when repeating the venerable creed of our baptism ! 
Let us endeavour to " know the certainty of those 
things" wherein we have been "instructed." Let 
us strive to imitate the example of St. Paul; "for- 
getting those things which are behind, and reach- 
ing forth to those things which are before," let us 
" press toward the mark for the prize of the high 
calling of God in Christ Jesus." 

In the present day these cautions are more espe- 
cially needed, for not only does superstition on the 
one hand display its most winning allurements to 
beguile the unwary to overstep the boundaries of 
truth, but infidelity on the other hand, under its 
most subtle form, strives to seduce us from our 
allegiance, and to enlist us under its banners. In 
this last probably lies the great danger of the 
present day. For while we mourn over those who 
" have left their first love," and yielded themselves 
to the meretricious allurements of the Church of 
Rome, we behold with trembling the multitudes 
rushing headlong into the snares of infidelity. Not 
only is unbelief spreading among the uneducated 
classes, it is arraying itself in the garb of science, 



CH. IX.] THE SPIRITUAL EXODUS, &C. 



469 



nay more, it is insidiously creeping into the very 
expositions of Holy Scripture, — the so-called theo- 
logical works of a certain class of writers serving 
but to instil into the mind the poison of infidelity. 
Thus faith is surreptitiously and imperceptibly ab- 
stracted, the very foundations of belief sapped and 
undermined, and we are scarcely aware of the small 
amount of faith which the suggested train of thought 
has left, until we find that we have unwittingly 
passed the line of demarcation, and are standing 
among the ranks of the infidel. 

Unbelievers, however, in the strict sense of the 
term, we can scarcely remain. Man in his pride 
may ignore Christianity, but the human mind will 
seek some substitute on which to stay itself. " An 
element of faith," observes a writer from whose 
pages we have already quoted, " has been lodged in 
our very nature, and hence it is, that if we believe 
not the truth, we are prone to believe a lie 2 ." To 
such a dread reality St. John points when speaking 
of the last manifestation of Antichrist. " And all 
that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose 
names are not written in the book of life of the 
Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." 
And, let it be remembered, to have been once in- 
scribed in that book of life, necessitates not that our 
names should alway continue therein. For, says 
the Apostle, " if any man shall take away from the 
words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take 
2 EiddelFs Bampton Lectures. 



470 THE SPIRITUAL EXODUS, &C. [PART II. 

away his part out of the book of life, and out of 
the holy city, and from the things which are written 
in this book." And although " he which testifieth 
these things, saith, Surely I come quickly," yet 
the day of Christ cannot come " except there be a 
falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed." 
The time of his appearance we know not, but from 
the present aspect of the world, we may justly 
fear that a large body, now halting between two 
opinions, will welcome his approach. Not having 
kept the faith of Christ, they will readily fall into 
the snares of Antichrist. 

An eloquent passage in the second series of 
Trench's Hulsean Lectures 3 is so apposite to this 
subject that I have no hesitation in quoting it. 
" There is a natural gravitation of souls, which 
attracts them to mighty personalities; an instinct 
in man, which tells him that he is never so great 
as when looking up to one greater than himself; 
to find, and finding to rejoice, and to be en- 
nobled, in a nobler than himself. And doubtless 
this instinct is in itself divine. It is the natural 
basis on which the devotion of mankind to Christ 
is by the Spirit to be built; it is an instinct which, 
being perfectly purified of each baser admixture, is 
intended to find its entire satisfaction in Him. 
True, it may stop short of Him ; it may turn 
utterly away from Him. It may stop short of Him, 

I 

3 P. 165. 



CH. IX.] THE SPIRITUAL EXODUS, &C 471 



resting in human heroes, in men glorious for their 
gifts, eminent for their services to their kind; and 
we have then the worship of genius instead of the 
worship of God. Or it may turn utterly away from 
Christ, and then, being in itself inextinguishable, 
and therefore surviving even in those who have 
wholly forsaken Him, it will, thus perverted and 
depraved, lay them open to all the delusions of 
false prophets and of Antichrists. For it is this, 
this attraction of men to a mightier than them- 
selves, which being thus perverted, has filled the 
world with deceivers and deceived ; which has 
gathered round the hunters of men the ready in- 
struments which have executed their will. It is 
this which has drawn souls, as moths to the candle, 
to rush into and to be scorched and to be con- 
sumed in the flame, which some wielder of heavenly 

gifts for hellish aims has kindled It is this, 

this craving of men passionately to devote them- 
selves to some one, which makes an Antichrist 
possible, which will make him so terrible when he 
appears; men by a just judgment of God being 
permitted to dedicate all which they ought to have 
dedicated to Christ, to his opposite, to him who 
comes in his own name, because they refused to 
give it, because they refused to give themselves, to 
Him who came in the name of his Father. It will 
then be fearfully seen that there can be an en- 
thusiasm of hell, no less than an enthusiasm of 
heaven." 



472 THE SPIRITUAL EXODUS, &C. [PART II. 

A few observations upon the emblem introduced 
into the title-page and I have done. 




Although the external structure of this con- 
figuration, called the "Vesica Piscis" (the fish's 
bladder) is of frequent recurrence in ecclesiastical 
architecture, its signification is, to judge from the 
variety of opinions entertained on the subject, very 
uncertain. The most general view is embodied in 
the following extract from Pugin. " The vesica 
appears to be derived from a very common acrostic 
of our Lord's name and offices contained in the 
Greek word ICHTHYS, which signifies a fish. 
This word, Eusebius and St. Augustine inform us, 
was formed from the initial letters of some verses 
of the Erythrsean Sibyls, which taken together made 
the Greek word IXGY2, which is interpreted, 
'hiaovQ Xjxarot; Qeov Ylug 2wr/;p, i. e. Jesus Christ, 



CH. IX.] THE SPIRITUAL EXODUS, &C. 473 

the Son of God, the Saviour. In allusion to this 
most ancient emblem of our Lord, Tertullian and 
other early Fathers speak of Christians as Pisciculi 
in reference to the waters of Baptism. Hence it 
seems probable that the mode of representing our 
Lord in a nimbus of a fish form originated. The 
fish is found as a Christian emblem in the earliest 
monuments, and the vesica piscis from the fourth 
century downwards. All seals of colleges, abbeys, 
and other religious communities, as well as of 
ecclesiastical persons, were made invariably of this 
shape." 

The peculiar propriety of the figure as em- 
blematic of our Lord, appears to me more strik- 
ing when considered under quite another aspect. 
The vesica is formed by the intersection of two 
equal circles cutting each other in their centres, 
and the figure is employed by mathematicians for 
the construction of that well-known symbol of the 
Holy Trinity, the equilateral triangle 4 . Hence 
probably originated the use of the vesica as an 
emblem of Christ ; while its designation may be 
derived not from any fancied resemblance to the 
figure of a fish, but from the fact that the mono- 
gram 1XGY2, and the vesica piscis both centre in 
one deep reality, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the 
Saviour, and derive their significance from "Him 
in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead 



4 1st Prop, of Euclid. 



474 THE SPIRITUAL EXODUS, &C. [PART II. 

bodily." The interior disposition of the equilateral 
triangle is admirably adapted to represent that 
fundamental verity to the symbolizing of which the 
triangle itself has been made subservient, viz., the 
Trinity in Unity, while the vesica indicates with 
peculiar propriety Him by whom the Triune God 
was revealed to mankind — God manifest in the 
flesh. The emblem, therefore, as a whole beau- 
tifully expresses the doctrine of the blessed Trinity, 
and the union of the Godhead and manhood in the 
person of Messiah. The truth thus symbolized 
cannot be too strongly enforced, for, from the doc- 
trine of the Holy Trinity, and that of the Incarna- 
tion of the eternal Son, emanate those various re- 
lations subsisting between God and man which con- 
stitute the sum and substance of Christianity. 

For the perpetuation of these momentous verities 
our Divine Master, beside the two Sacraments, 
has bequeathed to us for our guidance during the 
interval between his coming to save and to judge 
the world, two visible legacies : Holy Scripture 
which He has caused to be written for our learning, 
and he Christian Ministry instituted by Him for 
the promulgation of those Scriptures. These two 
legacies may be fitly distinguished as the Word of 
Truth, and the machinery of Truth. Each has its 
distinct office; the Bible is the rule of the Church, 
the Church is the guardian and preacher of the 
Bible; the one defines, the other inculcates; the 
one is the storehouse of treasure whence the other 



CH. IX.] THE SPIRITUAL EXODUS, &C. 475 

" bringeth forth things both old and new." To 
apply the words of the Almighty to Moses con- 
cerning Aaron, the Church is to the Bible instead 
of a mouth, and the Bible is to the Church instead 
of God 5 . 

Such is the adjustment of these two elements by 
the Church of this highly-favoured land. On the 
one hand she asserts that " Holy Scripture con- 
taineth all things necessary to salvation," and on 
the other, that " although the Church be a witness 
and keeper of Holy Writ, yet, as it ought not to 
decree any thing against the same, so besides the 
same ought it not to enforce any thing to be 
believed for necessity of salvation 6 ." It is the 
establishment of the correlative positions of the 
Word of Truth and the machinery of Truth which 
constitutes the Church of England the bulwark 
and champion of the Christian faith, and renders 
her so peculiarly fitted to contend, as with a two- 

5 See Exod. iv. 16. The relations between the Bible and 
the Church were at once more obvious and more vital before 
the invention of printing. Prior to that period, the only mode 
by which any knowledge of the contents of the sacred volume 
could be attained, was through the instrumentality of its 
mouthpiece, the Church. And it has been justly thought, 
that, when the Church of Rome became so glaringly unfaithful 
to her trust, the Almighty was pleased, through the medium of 
the press, to open a fountain whereat, however adverse to the 
wishes of the self-styled "mother and mistress of all Churches," 
souls which thirsted might drink of the " living waters." 
* 6 Articles VI. XX. See too Articles VIII. and XXI. 



476 THE SPIRITUAL EXODUS, &C. [PART II. 

edged sword, against the assaults of superstition on 
the one side, and of infidelity on the other. 

Alas ! we do not in these days sufficiently esti- 
mate the blessings of a scriptural Church, the privir 
leges conferred upon us by its possession, or the 
responsibilities thereby incurred. Boundless as is 
our empire, countless our wealth, measureless our 
power, yet herein consists the chief excellency of 
God's good will towards us, that He has rescued us 
from the trammels of a deadly superstition, com- 
mitted to our keeping the sacred deposit of his 
Holy Word, and commissioned us to plant his 
Church upon the ruins of Heathenism — to kindle 
the beacon of truth in the wilderness of a benighted 
world. God has made this nation a wonderful 
thing among the kingdoms of the earth — a speck 
upon the ocean to sway the destinies of the universe. 
Little though we be among the thousands of Judah, 
He has constituted us a tower of strength, a city set 
on an hill, an ark riding upon the troubled waters, 
bearing within its bosom that spiritual life which 
may vivify the wastes of Paganism. England is 
emphatically the country which is scattering her 
population broadcast throughout the globe, and as 
such she is the focus whence Christianity or In- 
fidelity will be disseminated. Other lands may 
concentrate, may cherish, may retain the latter, but 
we, if we arrest it not, shall widely diffuse the 
poison. The population of other countries is said 
to be on the decline ; England is welling out her' 



CH. IX.] THE SPIRITUAL EXODUS, &C. 477 

offspring river- wise, as from a perennial fountain 
whose waters will not be stayed. May she appre- 
ciate and fulfil her lofty destiny ere it be too late, 
lest He " who walketh in the midst of the seven 
golden candlesticks " come unto us quickly and re- 
move our candlestick out of its place! May we 
be spared so terrible a judgment! "God grant 
that the angels of our Church may do all with the 
same ardour of affection, as when first the Gospel 
dawned upon the darkness of the land ! God grant 
that the candlestick which holds the light of truth 
in the midst of our beloved country may shine 
4 more and more unto the perfect day 7 ! ' " 

Reader, you and I have passed through the Bap- 
tismal waters, our spiritual exodus is achieved. 
We are treading the pilgrimage of liee. We 
are, or we ought to be, labouring for the rest that 
remaineth. Goodly is the country to which the 
Christian is journeying, infinitely surpassing that 
earthly inheritance promised to Israel of old. Far 
more excellent the Canaan which lies beyond the 
valley of the shadow of death, than that land 
which bordered upon the wilderness, where so- 
journed the ancient people of God. Exceeding 
glorious the Jerusalem which is above ; far excelling 
that fair city where once stood the magnificent 
temple of the great Jehovah. " I saw," writes the 
inspired Apostle, "the holy city, new Jerusalem, 
coming down from God, out of heaven, prepared as 
7 Girdlestone's Com., Eev. ii. 5. 



478 THE SPIRITUAL EXODUS, &C. [PART II. 

a bride adorned for her husband, .... having 
the glory of God : and her light was like unto a 
stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear 
as crystal; .... and the building of the wall of 
it was of jasper; and the city was pure gold, like 
unto clear glass. And the foundations of the wall 
of the city were garnished with all manner of pre- 
cious stones And the twelve gates were 

twelve pearls ; every several gate was of one pearl : 
and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were 
transparent glass. And I saw no temple therein : 
for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the 
temple of it. And the city had no need of the 
sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the 
glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the 
light thereof." There, too, " God shall wipe away 
all tears from" our "eyes; and there shall be no 
more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither 
shall there be any more pain : for the former things 
are passed away," and God maketh "all things 
new." 

Such is the new heaven and the new earth to 
which God calls those who, having passed through 
the spiritual exodus, are treading the pilgrimage 
of life ; such the city where He would have 
them dwell, such the rest which remaineth for 
the people of God. He hath pledged it to them 
by covenant; He hath made them his children by 
adoption and grace; He hath embraced them with 
the arms of his mercy; He will give unto them 



CH. IX.] THE SPIRITUAL EXODUS, &C. 479 

the blessing of eternal life, and make them par- 
takers of his everlasting kingdom 8 . Shall we who 
have received this glorious summons, shall we 
think scorn of that pleasant land; shall we lightly 
esteem that city which hath foundations, whose 
builder and maker is God ; shall we contemn such 
great and exceeding precious promises; shall we, 
as did the Israelites of old, say, " Come, and let us 
make a captain, and let us return into Egypt;" 
shall we rush madly into the snares of Satan, to be 
led captive by him at his will ? Then must we 
also know God's breach of promise; then will 
God say to us, as He did to Israel in the wilderness, 
"Doubtless ye shall not come into the land con- 
cerning which I sware to make you dwell therein." 

Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, 
remembering that " we are made partakers of 
Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence 
stedfast to the end." " Let us hold fast the profes- 
sion of our faith without wavering, for he is faith- 
ful that promised." Let us "give diligence to 
make our calling and election sure." Let us 
" watch and pray " that we be " not of them which 
draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe 
to the saving of the soul." 

Eeader, if there shall have been in thee " an evil 
heart in departing from the living God," "remember 
how thou hast seen and heard, and hold, and repent." 



8 Baptismal Service. 



480 THE SPIRITUAL EXODUS, &C. 



" These things saith he that is holy, he that is 
true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, 
and no man shutteth; he that shutteth, and no 
man openeth." " As many as I love, I rebuke and 
chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. Be- 
hold, I stand at the door, and knock : if any man 
hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to 
him, and will sup with him, and he with me. To 
him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in 
my throne, even as I also overcame, and am sit 
down with my Father in his throne. " 



THE END. 



GILBERT AND RIV1NGTON, PRIMERS, ST. JOHN'S SQUARE, LOiNDOJN. 



APRIL, 1857. 

NEW BOOKS 

IN THE COURSE OF PUBLICATION 

BY 

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I. 

The MARTYR of the PONGAS ; a Memoir of the Rev. 
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WESTERN AFRICA. By the Rev. HENRY CASWALL, D.D., 
Vicar of Figheldean, Author of "America and the American Church," 
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III. 

PRINCIPLES of NATURAL THEOLOGY. By ROBERT 
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V. 

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VII. 

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g 



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IX. 

AGONISTES ; or, PHILOSOPHICAL STRICTURES, sug- 
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In this work the opinions of the following Authors (amongst others) 
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XI. 

The GREEK TESTAMENT: with a Critically revised Text; 
Various Readings; Marginal References to Verbal and Idiomatic 
Usage; Prolegomena; and a CRITICAL and EXEGETICAL COM- 
MENTARY in English. By the Rev HENRY ALFORD, B.D., 
Dean of Canterbury, and late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. 
Vol. III. (containing GALATIANS to PHILEMON.) In 8vo. 18*. 
%* The Fourth and concluding Volume is in Preparation. 

XII. 

CATECHESIS; or, CHRISTIAN INSTRUCTION pre- 
paratory to CONFIRMATION, and FIRST COMMUNION. By 
the Rev. CHARLES WORDSWORTH, D.CL, Bishop of St. 
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XIII. 

HYMNS and POEMS for the SICK and SUFFERING. 

In connexion with the Service for the VISITATION of the SICK. 
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This Volume contains 233 separate pieces ; of which about 90 are by 
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Elizabeth of Bohemia — P. Fletcher — G. Herbert — Dean Hickes — Bp. Ken 
— Norris — Quarles — Sandys— Bp. J. Taylor — Henry Vaughan — and Sir H. 
Wotton. And of modern writers: — Miss E. B. Barrett — The Bishop of 
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— Rev. Messrs. Chandler — Keble — Lyte — Monsell — Moultrie — and Trench. 



BY MESSRS. RIVINGTON. 



8 



XIV. 

The GREEK TESTAMENT. With ENGLISH NOTES. 
Part I. : The GOSPELS. By CHRISTOPHER WORDSWORTH, 
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XV. 

The WARNINGS of the HOLY WEEK ; being a COURSE 
of PAROCHIAL LECTURES for the WEEK before EASTER, 
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XVI. 

The FIRST of JUNE; or, SCHOOLBOY RIVALRY: a 

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XIX. 

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THEOPHILUS ANGLICANUS ; or, INSTRUCTION con- 
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XXI. 

ECHOES from MANY MINDS; a Collection of SACRED 
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In ISmo. (In the Press.) 



4 



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XXII. 

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XXIII. 

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XXIV. 

The ANNUAL REGISTER: or, a VIEW of the HISTORY 
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XXV. 

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XXX. 

PRACTICAL SERMONS. By JOHN BOWSTEAD, 

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XXXI. 

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5 



XXXTT. 

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XXXVI. 

A MANUAL of HOUSEHOLD PRAYER, for MORNING 

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XXXIX. 

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XL. 

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6 BOOKS RECENTLY PUBLISHED 



XLI. 

DISCOURSES: chiefly deduced from the GOSPELS and 
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XL.II. 

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XLIIT. 

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XLV. 

The FELLOW-TRAVELLERS : or, MARRIED LIFE ; 

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BY MESSRS. RIVINGTON. 



XLVII. 

A SERIES of SERMONS on the EPISTLE and GOSPEL 

for each SUNDAY in the YEAR, and the HOLY DAYS of the 
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The JOURNAL of CONVOCATION. Being a New Series 
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L. 

DIVINE LOVE in CREATION and REDEMPTION: a 

COURSE of SERMONS, from Septuagesima to Trinity, preached 
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LI. 

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8 RECENTLY PUBLISHED BY MESSRS. RIVINGTON. 



The DOCTRINE of the GREEK ARTICLE applied to the 
CRITICISM and ILLUSTRATION of the NEW TESTAMENT. 
By the late BISHOP MIDDLETON. With Prefatory Observations 
and Notes, by HUGH JAMES ROSE, B.D., late Principal of 
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LV. 

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Second Edition. In small 8vo. 7s. 

LVIII. 

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Dean. In 18mo. 2s. 

LTX. 

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LX. 

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LXI. 

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LXII. 

A COLLECTION of ANTHEMS, used in Her Majesty's 
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Originally published under the direction of THOMAS PEARCE, 
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with Additions. 8vo. 9s. 



WORKS PUBLISHED BY MESSRS. RIVINGTON. 9 



RECENT PAMPHLETS AND TRACTS. 

r. 

CHARITY NEVER FAILING; a SERMON, preached in Canterbury 
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[Continued. 



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